FACT: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo enacted a policy that forced nursing homes to take patients, regardless of whether they were infect wit...
FACT: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo enacted a policy that forced nursing homes to take patients, regardless of whether they were infect with COVID-19.
But now, the Democrat is claiming the staggering death toll in New York nursing homes was all the fault of the federal government.
“We followed federal guidance on the nursing homes,” Cuomo said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today Show.”
“We had more people die than any other state. That’s a fact,” Cuomo said . “The reason that happened was because we had the virus coming from Europe when the federal government told us the virus was coming from China. And we had no screening on people coming from Europe.”
The White House wasted no time is firing back.
“Governor Cuomo alone is to blame for refusing to shut down New York and forcing seniors who tested positive for coronavirus back into his state’s nursing homes,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement.
Nearly 25,000 New Yorkers have died from COVID-19, including a shocking 6,000 nursing home residents.
Cuomo in March enacted a state directive that required nursing homes to take in coronavirus-positive patients, which brought the virus sweeping through the most vulnerable population. The order stayed in place for months.
“No resident shall be denied readmission or admission to the NH [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission,” read Cuomo’s order.
‘During this global health emergency, all NHs must comply with the expedited receipt of residents returning from hospitals to NHs. Residents are deemed appropriate for return to a NH upon a determination by the hospital physician or designee that the resident is medically stable for return,” said the order.
The Cuomo administration sought to bury that fact.
“The webpage that once contained the order now directs to a page indicating that the file is ‘not found.’ The archive indicates that the deletion occurred sometime after May 5, around the time that criticism over New York’s nursing home fatalities intensified,” Fox News reported last month.
The Daily Mail also wrote the story after Fox, saying “Cuomo’s order requiring nursing homes to take coronavirus patients has been quietly deleted from the state department website.”