(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) No corner of Hell is fiery enough to give former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., the roasting he deserves.
Engineering thousands of deaths was not enough. Now he deceptively blames his lethal sins on someone who offered help: President Donald J. Trump.
Ahead of his testimony on Tuesday before the House COVID subcomittee, Cuomo—who resigned in August 2021 after sexually harassing 13 women—slithered out of his well-earned oblivion and appeared in Sunday’s New York Daily News:
“The United States lost 1.2 million people” to COVID, Cuomo wrote.
Why? “Trump recklessly and negligently politicized COVID” Cuomo claimed. “It was a complete failure of Trump’s leadership.”
The COVID deaths of nearly 13,000 Empire State nursing-home (NH) occupants were the predictable consequences of Cuomo’s decisions—not Trump’s.
On March 25, 2020, Cuomo’s Health Department ordered: “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”
Cuomo forbade evaluating seniors for COVID. His directive continued: “NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.”
Physicians immediately warned that Cuomo’s imperative would kill.
The American Medical Directors Association declared on March 26: “Unsafe transfers will increase the risk of transmission in post-acute and long-term care facilities which will ultimately only serve to increase the return flow back to hospitals, overwhelming capacity, endangering more healthcare personnel, and escalating the death rate.”
Team Cuomo replied: “Obey!”
The New York Post detailed the aftermath: Local hospitals steered 70 COVID sufferers into Harlem’s Terrence Cardinal Cooke home in April. By May 8, COVID-19 had killed 32 tenants. Hospitals delivered 19 COVID survivors to Staten Island’s Carmel Richardson facility. By May 8, the virus had whacked 56 inhabitants.
“The state forced us to bring in these sick people,” a nurse at Long Island’s Luxor Nursing and Rehabilitation told the Post. “We had no choice, but we’re not happy about it here.”
Cuomo denied rest homes’ protective-gear requests. “Not our job,” Cuomo snapped.
Until April 30—Day 48 of the crisis—Cuomo even let COVID-positive staffers work inside elder centers.
By Jan. 19, 2021—coincidentally, Trump’s last full day in the White House—Cuomo’s edicts had killed 12,743 assisted-living dwellers.
These were 46.3% more fatalities than the 8,711 reported perished in the state Health Department’s cooked books.
In contrast to Cuomo’s stupid, unnecessary, and fatal judgments, Trump offered Cuomo three lifesaving options:
First, Trump sped the 1,000-bed floating hospital USNS Comfort to Manhattan’s Pier 90 on March 30, 2020—five days after Cuomo’s decree. Cuomo could have quarantined COVID-positive seniors in Comfort’s 500 pandemic-grade berths until they tested negative, and then sent them to elder institutions.
Alas, Cuomo neglected the vessel. Only 182 checked in before Comfort steamed back to Norfolk, Virginia, that April 30.
Second, 12 blocks south, Trump transformed the Javits Center into a 3,000-bed pop-up hospital. Only 1,094 people arrived before it closed that May 1.
Donny Tuchman, CEO of Cobble Hill Health, begged to send COVID-positive individuals to Comfort or Javits that April 9. Cuomo’s Health Department said, Nyet.
“I was told those facilities were only for hospitals” to refer patients, Tuchman told the Post. Never mind that only 62 of Comfort’s berths were full that day, as were just 134 of Javits’s 1,000 COVID-ready beds.
Third, Trump’s close coordination with private industry yielded much of the masks, gowns, gloves, and other protective gear that Cuomo complained it was “not our job” to supply.
Cuomo should beg forgiveness for his toxic boneheadedness. Instead, he takes zero responsibility for elder-killing policy blunders.
Now, as Election Day looms, Cuomo slams Donald J. Trump, the man who tried to avoid this mayhem and keep older Americans alive long enough to enjoy another Christmas or Hanukkah. Conversely, Cuomo bullied seniors into premature graves.
Andrew Cuomo should do his pushups. That should make it easier for him to spend eternity shoveling coal into Satan’s furnaces.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.
