GOV GOES ON THE
Cuomo hits back over nursing home
EMS wheel a man out of the Cobble Hill Health Center nursing home.
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COURIER L 2 IFE, FEB. 26-MAR. 4, 2021
BY AIDAN GRAHAM
Accusing his critics of “lying
about what happened” in
the state’s nursing homes, Gov.
Andrew Cuomo continued his
fi erce defense of the way his
administration handled the
COVID-19 outbreak among the
state’s elderly care facilities.
“You have no right to lie. You
have no right to hurt people. I
don’t care if it’s your politics,
you can’t lie and cause pain to
people who are innocent bystanders
to all of this,” the governor
said at a press conference
on Feb. 19. “So I’m going to take
on the lies, and the unscrupulous
actors — especially when
they cause pain and damage
to New Yorkers. I should have
done it before, and I should have
done it more aggressively.”
Cuomo’s heated rhetoric
marks the latest in an intensifying
battle in Albany over the
state’s actions with regards to
nursing homes in the beginning
of the pandemic — and
the subsequent effort by legislators
to get a full understanding
of the impact the virus had on
those facilities.
The controversy hit a fever
pitch in January, when state Attorney
General Letitia James
issued a damning report suggesting
that the Cuomo administration
had undercounted the
number of deaths in nursing
homes and long term care facilities
by up to 50 percent.
Since then, the state’s Department
of Health has updated
their publicly released numbers
— from around 8,500 to
over 15,000 deaths.
Much of the discrepancy between
the original and newlyreported
numbers stem from
the state’s decision not to include
nursing home deaths that
occurred outside of the facilities,
such as in hospitals — even
if the infection occurred inside
the nursing homes.
‘Another slap in the face’
Now, many of Cuomo’s critics
have blasted the governor’s
omission, accusing him of hiding
the numbers in an effort to
keep the number of deaths artifi
cially low.
“The governor and his administration
knowingly chose
to lie and play politics with New
Yorkers’ lives,” said Queens
state Sen. Jessica Ramos in a
statement. “This news is another
slap in the face to the
many New Yorkers still grieving
the loss of their loved ones
across our state.”
That was backed up on Feb.
19 with Bronx/Queens Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio
Cortez supporting an investigation,
and Brooklyn City
Councilman Carlos Menchaca
going as far as to call for Cuomo’s
resignation.
For his part, Cuomo has
claimed that his administration
“delayed” a request by state
legislators to provide information
on nursing home deaths
because the United States Department
of Justice had issued
a similar request, and his administration
gave preference to
the feds’ request.
“We said we would pause
the state legislature’s request,
because we gave DOJ precedence,”
he said. “We paused
the state’s request, and we told
them that we paused the state’s
request. They were told, and
they knew.”
Cuomo’s claim, however,
that his administration had
informed the state legislature
that their request was taking
a back seat to the DOJ probe
drew widespread condemnation
from many of New York’s
elected offi cials — including
Ramos, who did not mince
words on Twitter.
“Liar, liar, pants on fi re,”
she wrote.
On Feb. 18, one day before
Cuomo’s remarks, the New York
Law Journal reported that both
the U.S. Attorney’s Offi ce and
the FBI had launched a probe
into the state’s COVID-19 task
force.
Now, a bipartisan group of
state legislators are looking to
strip Cuomo of the emergency
powers granted to him at the
onset of the pandemic, with a
vote loosely scheduled for next
week — a proposal that drew
praise from Ocasio-Cortez.
“I support our state’s return
to co-equal governance and
stand with our local offi cials
calling for a full investigation
of the Cuomo administration’s
handling of nursing homes
during COVID-19,” she said in
a statement. “Thousands of vulnerable
New Yorkers lost their
lives in nursing homes throughout
the pandemic. Their loved
ones and the public deserve answers
and transparency from
their elected leadership.”
Brooklyn state Sen. Andrew
Gounardes took to social media
to announce his support for
stripping Cuomo’s emergency
powers.
“The legislature is a coequal
branch of state government
and it’s time for us to reassert
checks and balances
over the governor’s broad emergency
powers,” he wrote on
Twitter. “We must ensure the
legislature is included in decision
making processes, as well
as reassert our oversight responsibilities.”
Another state pol who expressed
support for reining in
Cuomo’s authority, Queens Assemblyman
Ron Kim, found
himself the target of the governor’s
ire earlier this week,
when Cuomo, seemingly outof
the-blue, accused Kim of engaging
in a pay-to-play political
scheme involving nail salon
businesses.
In defending himself in a
Wednesday afternoon statement,
Kim shot back at the governor’s
“fatally incompetent
management.”
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