Cuomo’s ‘my mother is not expendable’ speech rings a little hollow now, doesn’t it?
Here’s how a New York state regulation quite literally put the most vulnerable at an increased risk of coronavirus infection.
The left keeps saying some version of the accusation that President Trump has “blood on his hands” for his actions and/or inaction taken during the coronavirus pandemic. Pelosi has said it. Various Democrats have said it. Chuck Todd gave Biden a leading question trying to bait him into saying it.
Even formerly ‘conservative’ talking heads have thrown in with the rhetoric.
What, because early in the outbreak, Trump heard about an optimistic peer-reviewed study in The Lancet which (last we checked) was one of the premier reputable medical journals? Never did he say conclusively that it would work, only that he was optimistic about what conclusions might be drawn from studies.
If you’re going to play the blame game, you will need to connect policies and negative results.
For example, with New York the principal crisis zone of the American wave of these outbreaks we might want to ask if any decisions directly contributed to the spread of the disease, especially among vulnerable populations.
For one, the local (not Federal) decisions about reducing transit show a direct correlation to increased spread along specific transit corridors.
That is one potential place to play this blame game. But there is a far more obvious one… in the seniors’ residences.
Remember, this is what Governor Cuomo said on March 24, the day before the new directive was implemented. “My mother is not expendable…”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that elderly people were ‘not expendable’ and that the ‘first order of business is to save lives, period’ as the @WHO said the U.S. could emerge as the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic https://t.co/IpvfPau3ut pic.twitter.com/ycArzNCROY
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 24, 2020
A nice thought. But what does it look like in practice? Here is Governor Cuomo explaining the new rules, in a report outlining the “unique challenges that nursing homes are facing during this epidemic, and how the State is going to make sure they are properly meeting them.”
Did you catch that? Cruise Ships are denounced for their close quarters as a ticking time bomb, but we’re ok with reintroducing a known COVID-19 carrier into the midst of a population that is in the very same risk category as most of the lethal cases in Italy. Al-righty, then. That makes exactly zero sense.
We KNEW that the elderly are at particular risk, and that even the most well-meaning and careful staff can become infected themselves (and remember, they are asymptomatic for a while) or they might inadvertently expose other residents to the pathogen.
Here he is on April 18 saying that nursing homes were the “single biggest fear” for coronavirus deaths. He even explains his reasons: ‘vulnerable people in one place, it is THE feeding frenzy for this virus, DESPITE everything we can do and the best efforts of those working in those nursing homes’
“Nursing homes are the single biggest fear in all of this”: Gov. Cuomo announces 504 new coronavirus deaths in New York https://t.co/S67DqO6NWN pic.twitter.com/UOClOKhrZF
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 18, 2020
Vulnerable people in one place. Feeding frenzy. And yet, we already showed you where he specifically described their policy of returning COVID positive elderly back into their nursing homes.
On April 22 they were still talking about returning patients to the ‘feeding frenzy’ he mentioned was his greatest fear only 4 days earlier:
Notice in the latter part of the question, where Mr. ‘pass the bucks’ specifically disavows the responsibility of picking up the slack for a private institution because they are distinct entities in exactly the same way he DENIES that the State and Federal government are distinct entities. How convenient for him.
Notice how, in this next clip, Cuomo again dumps extra expectations and regulations on these nursing homes without ‘passing the bucks’ to help implement these new regulations. While he yips to Trump that he can’t open the economy without mucho dinero from D.C..
NY Gov. Cuomo says the NY State Health Dept and Attorney General will conduct a joint investigation into nursing homes statewide to make sure they follow the rules: “If they're not being followed, they can be subjected to a fine or lose their license” https://t.co/QBahnlGuEe pic.twitter.com/pfd96lLts0
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 23, 2020
But they ARE getting a little help from the State. They were kind enough to supply a few body bags among the PPE. Sure hope it was enough.
The first coronavirus patients admitted to a Queens nursing home under a controversial state mandate arrived along with some grim accessories — a supply of body bags, The Post has learned.
An executive at the facility — which was previously free of the deadly disease — said the bags were in the shipment of personal protective equipment received the same day the home was forced to begin treating two people discharged from hospitals with COVID-19.
“My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box so much heavier than the rest, he opened it,” the exec told The Post Thursday.
“The first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags.” —NYPost
Since there are now somewhere north of 3500 fatalities in New York nursing homes, it’s fair to ask about the policies that put them all in danger… isn’t it?
Maybe if there were an (R) after his name, journalists would be asking some pointed questions about it.
