“A million deaths is a statistic.”
— Josef Stalin
Put it another way.
A single death in a nursing facility is a tragedy.
Three to eight thousand deaths in nursing facilities, of Wuhan-19, is a statistic.
Let me cut to the chase up front.
In my opinion, New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo has blood on his hands.
Why would that be?
For taking the most virulent global pandemic disease of 2020 and placing people infected with same — not just “suggesting” but mandating it with the force of the entire state of New York behind said mandate — and no, not “placing” but forcibly injecting people, into nursing facilities within the state of New York.
Facilities that couldn’t say no.
The elderly, the infirm — those very same persons, who in their early years, had worked hard in order to allow New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo to attain his exalted position and stand upon their work (as in: Governor Cuomo, you didn’t build that, they did.), their grief, their tears, their labor and sweat in order to obtain his current position.
Those people. Who paid their taxes, paid their dues, obeyed the laws, built ships, flew planes, poured concrete, laid bricks, fixed cars, took care of children, started small businesses, repaired toilets, constructed skyscrapers, drove locomotives, dug ditches, stitched wounds, designed clothes, conducted brain surgery, repaired broken windshields, replaced HVAC systems, knitted socks, changed diapers, and fought wars for America, serving their nation, serving their communities.
And those people who, now, in their later years, those infirm, those who require the greatest amount of care, those who did in fact pay every bill, honor every debt required of them, the most vulnerable, the weakest amongst us, the most susceptible to disease, the least able to fight back physically, genetically and psychologically — found themselves placed directly into harm’s way by an individual who knew better.
And I’ll prove it. Work with me here.
First, we know that Wuhan-19 deaths are being padded. For money. That is to say, three times the federal cash paid for a Wuhan-19 death as opposed to any other.
Clear thinking people should already have all the bells and klaxons going off in their heads about information surrounding Wuhan-19.
First, we knew that New York was over its head. It couldn’t begin to cope with what was before its very eyes
New York was told to prepare. But it decided to ignore its own study. From the NYPost.com:
We didn’t have to have ventilator shortage — leaders chose not to prep for pandemic
by Betsy McCaughey, 3-19-20
Several years ago, after learning that the Empire State’s stockpile of medical equipment had 16,000 fewer ventilators than the 18,000 New Yorkers would need in a severe pandemic, state public-health leaders came to a fork in the road.
They could have chosen to buy more ventilators to back up the supplies hospitals maintain. Instead, the health commissioner, Howard Zucker, assembled a task force for rationing the ventilators they already had.
In 2015, that task force came up with rules that will be imposed when ventilators run short. Patients assigned a red code will have highest access, and other patients will be assigned green, yellow or blue (the worst), depending on a “triage officer’s” decision.
Who was governor of the State of New York in 2015? Correct. Andrew Cuomo.
In 2015, the state could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators for $36,000 apiece, or a total of $576 million. It’s a lot of money, but in hindsight, spending half a percent of the budget to prepare for pandemic was the right thing to do.
This wasn’t Trump’s purvey. He wasn’t even president. Only one person: Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo then blamed the president for not providing a sufficient amount of ventilators to help NY state residents.
But in New York, rationing ventilators should be unnecessary. The state knew of the shortage, had the money and should have bought the lifesaving equipment, instead of making a plan for who should live or die. A lesson for the future.
New York was overwhelmed. But they had warning. They chose to ignore the warning. They were unprepared. They could have decided to be prepared. They chose not to. That was an active, affirmative decision; not a passive one. There were consequences. President Trump had absolutely nothing to do with those decisions.
Here’s one example, from the NYPost.com:
Dozens of bodies found in U-Haul trucks outside NYC funeral home
by Larry Celona, 4-29-20
Police found dozens of bodies being stored in unrefrigerated trucks outside a Brooklyn funeral home and lying on the facility’s floor Wednesday, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Between 40 and 60 bodies were discovered either stacked up in U-Haul box trucks outside Andrew Cleckley Funeral Services in Flatlands or on the building’s floor, after neighbors reported a foul odor around the property, sources said.
The corpses were stacked on top of each other in the trucks. Fluid leaking from inside created a terrible smell and caused neighboring store owners to call the police, according to sources.
We heard, then, the resulting plaintive cry from this women when she discovered her own reality. Again from NYPost.com:
Woman slams de Blasio after relative’s body left at home for hours
by Sara Dorn, 4-18-20
A grieving Harlem food truck owner was forced to ice her husband’s corpse Saturday as she searched for someone to retrieve his body, several hours after he died from suspected coronavirus.
Tami Treadwell, 57, slammed the city after Gregory Anthony Treadwell’s remains were left in the home by emergency responders, with the city medical examiner’s office telling her it could take “three hours to three days” to pick them up.
“This is our city, and we’re being treated like s–t!” wailed Treadwell, owner of Harlem Seafood Soul.
“It’s grossly inhumane. I say shame on you Mayor de Blasio … you got to designate somebody to come get these bodies out of here, people who died at home. How dare you make us have to deal with that and to live with the body for days? How dare you, Mayor de Blasio? And you can’t blame that s–t on Trump. You can’t blame that s–t on Cuomo!” Treadwell cried.
Now let’s get specific. On April 14th, Governor Cuomo said nursing homes are the “optimal feeding ground for the virus.”
Governor Cuomo knew this. It is archived on the internet via, for example, this NYDailyNews.com story:
Cuomo calls nursing homes a ‘feeding frenzy’ for coronavirus as 540 die in New York
by Dave Goldiner, 4-18-20
Gov. Cuomo called nursing homes the biggest concern for New York authorities battling the coronavirus pandemic on Saturday even as a lower overall total of 540 people died in the past day.
The relatively lower death toll represents a dip of more than 25% from just a few days ago. But the governor said the still-raging epidemic claimed 36 elderly victims in nursing homes — and still poses a dire threat.
“Nursing homes are the single biggest fear in all of this,” he said. “Vulnerable people in one place, it is the feeding frenzy for this virus.”
“Nursing homes are the No. 1 long term consequence of this disease,” he added.
Knowing this, saying this, what did New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo decide to do? Correct. Force nursing facilities to accept Wuhan-19 patients in their March 25th policy.
Newsday.com reported:
Nursing homes can’t reject patients just over coronavirus, state says
by Joan Gralfa, 3-29-20
New York State’s nursing homes cannot reject newly released hospital patients solely because they tested positive for the novel coronavirus, a new state directive says.
The order raised concern in an industry whose elderly and frail residents have the lowest survival rate for the disease.
The state health department issued the new directive, which the nursing home industry says is a first, late Wednesday. “No resident shall be denied readmission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19,” the directive reads.
Hospitals are under pressure to discharge patients, including ones stricken with the coronavirus but who don’t need ventilators, to open up beds for what Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo says will be a surge of thousands more cases in the next two to four weeks. However, nursing homes, whose workforce is struggling with problems like those in hospitals — arranging child care and managing a shortage of supplies like protective garb — fear their facilities will be overwhelmed.
Governor Cuomo himself told facilities they had to accept Wuhan-19 patients. From NYPost.com:
Nursing homes have ‘no right’ to reject coronavirus patients, Cuomo says
by Bernadette Hogan and Bruce Golding, 4-23-20
New York’s nursing homes weren’t allowed to challenge a controversial order to admit patients with the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday — even though it’s been blamed for spreading the deadly disease among residents.
“They don’t have a right to object. That is the rule and that is the regulation and they have to comply with that,” Cuomo said during his daily briefing in Albany.
“And the regulation is common sense: if you can’t provide adequate care, you can’t have the patient in your facility and that’s your basic fiduciary obligation — I would say, ethical obligation — and it’s also your legal obligation.”
That wasn’t enough. Governor Andrew Cuomo decided to demand more compliance, as this New York Post article indicates:
Cuomo doubles down on ordering nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients
by Kate Sheehy, 4-26-20
Gov. Cuomo doubled down Sunday on the state’s controversial directive ordering nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients.
The governor — who himself has described nursing homes as a “feeding frenzy’’ for the deadly coronavirus — said that the facilities can’t challenge a state regulation forcing them to admit patients with the contagion.
Well wait. Cuomo said, Wuhan-19 will sweep through nursing facilities like a whirlwind. He believed it. He said it. He knew it. Yet he made the statement, demanding it continue to occur. So yes, Governor Cuomo knew precisely what he was doing, and was aware of every movement regarding New York State nursing facilities.
The CEO of a hard-hit Brooklyn nursing home, where 55 patients have died from the coronavirus, told The Post last week that he’d been warning state Health Department officials for weeks he had staffing and equipment issues — yet received little help.
“There is no way for us to prevent the spread under these conditions,’’ the head of the Cobble Hill Health Center, Donny Tuchman, wrote in an e-mail to the department on April 8.
But here’s the crux of the biscuit.
He said he asked to move some patients to the makeshift wards at Manhattan’s Javits Center and aboard the city-docked USNS Comfort amid the pandemic, only to be told those two spots were receiving only patients from hospitals.
“I made specific requests to transfer patients, and it didn’t happen,’’ Tuchman told The Post. “There weren’t options.”
Hospital facilities built quickly on the order of President Trump. An entire military ship, one of only two in existence, devoted solely to New York City. Ignored. Unused. Torn down. Sailed away for “lack of need.”
Yet the “need” somehow continued to be to “place fiery, virulent Wuhan-19 virus patients into the closed buildings of those persons with the least capacity to fight said virus.”
In direct contravention of federal laws. From the TimesUnion.com:
Medicare chief: Cuomo’s nursing home order did not follow federal guidelines
by Emilie Munson, 5-29-20
WASHINGTON — The federal government’s top official overseeing nursing homes said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive order in late March that directed the admittance of coronavirus patients from hospitals to nursing facilities did not follow her agency’s guidance.
Cuomo has insisted that his original order regarding nursing homes was aligned with the Trump administration’s policy, but Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Wednesday that’s not the case.
We see what’s building here, don’t we? A case?
“Under no circumstances should a hospital discharge a patient to a nursing home that is not prepared to take care of those patients’ needs,” Verma said on Fox News Radio. “The federal guidelines are absolutely clear about this.”
New York nursing homes have reported about 6,000 confirmed or presumed COVID-19 deaths, as of May 27, the most recent data available.
We see already, what Governor Cuomo is going to say soon, don’t we?
Cuomo’s March 25 nursing home order did not specifically say that nursing homes should only accept recovering coronavirus patients if they were safely able to do so, a talking point he has been making repeatedly in recent weeks. The order said “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.”
It emphasized: “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”
Already Governor Cuomo was saying “hey, it wasn’t me. I wasn’t responsible.”
Cuomo defended his actions on May 23, saying, “What New York did was follow what the Republican administration said to do. … Don’t criticize the state for following the president’s policy.”
Except he was responsible. And he knew what he did. Only after things went very badly did he begin his political backpedal.
The policy prompted severe backlash against the Cuomo administration as COVID-19 cases spread rampantly among seniors in nursing homes, causing many deaths. Then, on May 10, Cuomo revised this policy, ordering nursing homes to only accept hospital patients who have tested negative for coronavirus into their facilities.
Nursing facilities in New York weren’t ready. They weren’t prepared with appropriately-trained staff. They didn’t have the requisite equipment. But that didn’t matter to Governor Cuomo. Equipment? He wasn’t going to assist them. From the NYPost.com:
Gov. Cuomo says ‘it’s not our job’ to provide PPE to nursing homes
by Bernadette Hogan, Bruce Golding and Carl Campanite, 4-22-20
Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted that “it’s not our job” to provide coronavirus-ravaged nursing homes with personal protective equipment — even as more than 3,000 patients have lost their lives in facilities ordered by his administration to take in COVID-19 patients.
“We have been helping them with more PPE but, again, it’s not our job,” Cuomo said Wednesday during his daily briefing in Albany.
Pressed on why coronavirus patients were not kept out of the facilities, which treat the elderly and other vulnerable populations, Cuomo insisted that the state regulated, but did not “run,” New York’s privately owned nursing homes.
“You’ll be out of business if you’re not providing your staff with the right equipment. You’re out of business. That we can do,” he said of state regulations.
I see a trend. Governor Andrew Cuomo makes the active decision to place Wuhan-19 patients in New York nursing facilities, where the weakest live in small, enclosed spaces. He doubles down on that demand. They chides these facilities for not ponying up their own PPE or Personal Protective Equipment — or, as he states, he’ll gladly assist with closing their businesses.
The situation in New York was a warning — one that was clearly heard by an administrator in Pennsylvania, who took “her” own mother out of a nursing facility. After making the same order as New York Governor Cuomo. “Do as I say, not as I do. Only the little people need obey me.”
From the DailyCaller.com:
PA Health Secretary Moved Mother Out Of Personal Care Home After Ordering Nursing Homes To Accept COVID Patients
by Peter Hasson, 5-13-20
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine’s mother moved out of a personal care home with the health secretary’s help, after Levine ordered all nursing homes and long-term facilities in the state to accept coronavirus patients from hospitals.
Levine admitted Tuesday to moving the 95-year-old Pennsylvania resident out of her personal care home, which is similar to an assisted living facility although technically distinct.
“Good for thee, not for me.”
“My mother requested, and my sister and I as her children complied to move her to another location during the COVID-19 outbreak,” Levine said. The health secretary’s admission came after local station ABC27 found out about the move.
Translated: unless discovered, Levin was never going to tell anyone what “she” had done. Lying by omission. Purposely. Consciousness of guilt. Remember that phrase.
Levine is facing calls to resign over the department’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
“Our secretary of health, Dr. Levine, decided that it would be good to allow COVID-positive patients to be returned to elder-care facilities. And as a result of that, it broke out like fire,” Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano said Monday at a rally calling for Levine’s resignation.
Imagine that. Should Governor Cuomo be any exception?
So what happened? FoxNews.com reported:
Over 4,300 virus patients sent to NY nursing homes, AP counts
by Bernard Condon, Jennifer Peltz and Jim Mustian, 5-22-20
More than 4,300 recovering coronavirus patients were sent to New York’s already vulnerable nursing homes under a controversial state directive that was ultimately scrapped amid criticisms it was accelerating the nation’s deadliest outbreaks, according to a count by The Associated Press.
AP compiled its own tally to find out how many COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals to nursing homes under the March 25 directive after New York’s Health Department declined to release its internal survey conducted two weeks ago. It says it is still verifying data that was incomplete.
Whatever the full number, nursing home administrators, residents’ advocates and relatives say it has added up to a big and indefensible problem for facilities that even Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the main proponent of the policy — called “the optimum feeding ground for this virus.”
As I mentioned earlier, weren’t there alternative locations available for Wuhan-19 patients besides nursing facilities? Of course there were. Some were never even used. From the NYPost.com:
$21M Brooklyn field hospital never saw a patient amid coronavirus pandemic
by Carl Campanile and Natalie Musumeci, 5-22-20
A roughly $21 million Brooklyn field hospital authorized by the de Blasio administration at the height of the coronavirus pandemic opened and closed without ever seeing one patient, according to city officials.
The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook was one of several sites across the five boroughs converted into a medical facility as a way to relieve the city’s overburdened hospital system as the COVID-19 crisis mounted.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans on Mar. 31 — a day after the USNS Comfort hospital ship arrived in New York Harbor to aid in the coronavirus fight — for the $20.8 million Red Hook field hospital with an estimated capacity for 750 beds.
The field hospital was built by Texas-based construction company SLSCO.
The USS Comfort was also available, but unused. But now the pressure begins to build. FoxNews.com reported:
Coronavirus: Amid New York’s unused hospital beds and ventilators, critics point to mass waste and mismanagement
by Holly McKay, 5-1-20
While New York has weathered the brunt of coronavirus infections and deaths, the state’s apparent hoarding of medical supplies, and the millions spent on equipment that never arrived, as well as unused hospitals and beds, have some questioning what went wrong.
Early to mid-March projections of the spread of COVID-19 had the state scrambling to bolster its hospital bed capacity to more than double its 53,000 maximum status-quo. Subsequently, hospitals statewide were ordered to discharge patients to free up beds, and forced to add new ones as non-emergency procedures were canceled.
Knowing all that, Governor Cuomo had a decision to make. But he knew what the outcome would be, inserting a hot virus into populations of the weakest New York citizens. Wouldn’t a normal individual with common sense realize that?
But read this now, from the same story.
Meanwhile, nursing home managers have been left bewildered as to why the empty facilities were not made available for ill and suspect coronavirus patients, who were not able to be aptly isolated from others deemed vulnerable to severe infection or death.
In April, coronavirus patients at a Brooklyn nursing home were denied admission to both of the medical facilities established in New York to handle victims of the pandemic even though beds were mostly empty. The snub, as highlighted by the New York Post, came weeks after New York health officials were warned by the nursing home operator – where 55 people have died – that there was a grave concern, and requesting patients be transferred to the temporary facilities.
New York nursing homes have accounted for 13 percent of the state’s coronavirus death toll, according to the state’s health department figures.
Oh, but it’s much worse than that. We’ll see. The death counts continued to build. From the NYPost.com:
Over 1,700 more coronavirus deaths reported in New York nursing homes
by Carl Campanile, Bernadette Hogan and Aaron Feis, 5-5-20
The coronavirus’ suspected death toll among New York’s nursing home residents exploded by an additional 1,700 fatalities — as Gov. Andrew Cuomo caught bipartisan backlash Tuesday for his administration’s edict that the facilities take in COVID-19 patients.
The grim tally surged to at least 4,813 late Monday as the state Department of Health disclosed for the first time not just confirmed coronavirus deaths, but fatalities in which the deceased was never tested despite showing telltale symptoms, which also sparked outrage.
A spokesman for the Health Department pinned the delay in factoring in the suspected deaths on shoddy work by overwhelmed nursing homes.
“The numbers we are presenting as part of our review capture confirmed and presumed coronavirus deaths that many facilities were not previously reporting,” said Gary Holmes.
The numbers. Yes, the numbers.
Sources told The Post, however, that even the revised figure fails to capture the true scope of the horror, because stricken nursing home residents who die in hospitals are not counted towards the healthcare facilities’ tallies released Tuesday.
Cuomo attempted to undercut his own Health Department by casting skepticism on the figures during a Tuesday press briefing in Manhattan.
“Just to be clear, I would take all of these numbers with a grain of salt,” the governor told reporters in his Midtown office.
“What does a ‘presumed death’ mean, right? How do you presume it to be the coronavirus?”
Cuomo scoffed at the stats as they sparked a renewed barrage of criticism over his handling of nursing homes amid the pandemic.
Cuomo scoffed. The bodies piled up. Your mother, your father, your parents, your grandparents.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote on May 2nd:
I don’t think there are easy or pat answers to how civil liberties should be balanced with the outbreak of this new, lethal, highly contagious virus. But what’s worrisome is that there is no balancing going on: it’s full, unlimited, absolute authority in the hands of governors.
But the heat was on and Governor Andrew Cuomo was the focus. So Cuomo made a public statement. From CBSNews.com:
Cuomo says no one should be prosecuted for coronavirus deaths in New York, including those in nursing homes
by Caroline Linton, 5-18-20
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday addressed the state’s early response to the coronavirus outbreak and said “nobody” should be prosecuted for the those who died, noting that “older people” were most vulnerable. The governor has been criticized for a decision in March, which has since been reversed, to send patients back to nursing homes after they tested positive for COVID-19.
Isn’t that convenient, since the focus was now on him? And could Governor Andrew Cuomo have been any more dismissive? Consciousness of guilt. His guilt.
But wait; there’s more. It gets better. From FoxNews.com:
Cuomo granted immunity to nursing home executives, after big-money campaign donation: report
by Adam Shaw, 5-27-20
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who signed legislation granting hospital and nursing home executives immunity from lawsuits related to the novel coronavirus last month, previously received a big-money boost from a powerful health care industry group, according to a new report.
An article published on the socialist website Jacobin, and re-published by The Guardian, reports that the New York State Democratic Committee, then backing Cuomo’s primary run in 2018, received more than $1 million from the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) — a lobbying group for hospital systems, some of which own nursing homes.
Correct. More people died in New York nursing facilities than died on September 11th.
Because if Governor Cuomo couldn’t hold himself accountable, how could he hold the nursing facilities accountable? Big money folks, big money. Big donations. $2.3 million dollars.
REVEALED: Governor Cuomo quietly gave legal immunity to nursing home executives from coronavirus lawsuits after raking in $2.3 million in campaign cash from the industry
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo took in $2.3 million in campaign cash from the hospital and nursing home industry before signing legislation to provide legal immunity to healthcare executives in the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report.
Cuomo quietly signed legislation last month shielding hospital and nursing home executives from the threat of lawsuits stemming from the pandemic, in a provision inserted into the annual budget, the Guardian reported.
We already knew this as of April 23rd.
Coronavirus deaths at US nursing homes, long-term facilities reach over 10,000
by Joshua Miller, 4-23-20
Coronavirus-linked fatalities at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities in the US have surpassed 10,000 — with the highest tally in New York, according to a troubling new report.
A survey by the Wall Street Journal published Wednesday found at least 10,700 fatalities among 35 states that either submit data online or responded to information requests.
The highest total — 3,505 — was reported in New York, according to the outlet.
The MinotDailyNews asked:
Who sent COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes?
by Michael Barone, 5-20-20
One-third of reported coronavirus deaths in the United States, according to New York Times reporting, are of nursing home residents or workers. Nursing homes accounted for a majority of deaths in heavily hit states like New Jersey (52%), Massachusetts (59%), Pennsylvania (66%) and Connecticut (55%), and for 80% of the deaths in otherwise lightly hit Minnesota.
When asked about his (nursing home) policy in late April, Governor Andrew Cuomo professed ignorance. Two weeks later, on May 9, after 46 days in effect, he reversed it.
New York wasn’t the only state that insisted on placing infected patients in nursing homes. New Jersey’s policy was similar, explicitly barring homes from requiring testing before admitting patients. California had the same policy but dropped it after 10 days.
Michael Goodwin wrote in the NYPost.com:
Blame governors for the coronavirus deaths in nursing homes: Goodwin
An article in Nowhere Magazine several years ago explored the ways ancient cultures dispatched the elderly, a practice known as senicide. Author Justin Nobel recounted several gruesome rites that made the Inuit habit of putting Granny on an Arctic ice floe seem humane.
At one point, Nobel mentioned that his own grandparents had moved “to a fancy nursing home in the suburbs of New York City.”
That made me shudder.
If they are honest, historians judging the American experience during the coronavirus pandemic will excoriate our barbaric failure to protect the elderly. We think of ourselves as civilized, but mindless policies and bureaucratic indifference turned many nursing homes and rehabilitation centers into killing fields.
At least 28,000 residents and workers in long-term care facilities already have died from the virus, according to a New York Times analysis done more than a week ago. That represented one out of every three COVID-19 deaths recorded in the United States at the time and was likely an undercount because of reporting lags and varying state methods.
Read this:
The states with the most nursing-home deaths, New York and New Jersey, didn’t make the list because of so many other deaths, yet more than 10,000 people died in their facilities. The 5,500 nursing-home deaths in New York are more than the total deaths in all other states except New Jersey.
Despite the surging death count, Cuomo defended his directive for more than six weeks. He reversed himself only last Sunday, ruling that patients must test negative before hospitals can send them to nursing homes. Yet he insisted that the initial policy “worked.”
If more than 5,000 dead was success, what would failure look like?
Cuomo’s reversal included forcing nursing homes to test staff and administrators twice a week, at the homes’ own expense. There was no explanation why testing was not required all along, or how it would work when labs say they cannot process the needed 410,000 weekly tests.
Blame governors, not Trump. You know, the same people who are blaming President Trump.
If that wasn’t clear enough, Goodwin also wrote:
This nursing home disaster is on you, Gov. Cuomo: Goodwin
Two weeks ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was first asked about his policy that forced nursing homes to admit patients infected with the coronavirus.
“That’s a good question, I don’t know,” the governor answered, turning to an aide.
On Tuesday, Cuomo was asked about a report from the Associated Press that his team had added more than 1,700 deaths to the count of those who died in nursing homes, bringing the total to at least 4,813.
“I don’t know the details, frankly,” the governor answered, turning to an aide.
Whose responsibility is it? Trump’s?
So with known nursing home deaths representing 25 percent of all deaths in the state, it beggars belief that the governor didn’t know anything about his office’s fatal policy two weeks ago or the new death totals now.
The only way either could be true is through an extreme case of plausible deniability. Thus, if there’s no proof he knew, he can’t be held responsible, right? Which was the whole point of the Sgt. Schultz defense.
That was a sitcom. This is life and death.
Then this.
Two other things Cuomo said Tuesday also bear remembering. First, he allowed that “we did some very harsh things” to nursing homes that “frankly, I wasn’t comfortable with.” He then cited the order barring visitors for the last two months.
It was indeed harsh, especially for the families who never saw their loved ones again before the virus killed them. By the same token, those families want to know why in the world the state would bar them from nursing homes but simultaneously impose infected patients on the same facilities.
It wasn’t President Trump, who was responsible for the New York nursing facility catastrophe. It was Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Now the stats are coming in. From Forbes.com:
The Most Important Coronavirus Statistic: 42% Of U.S. Deaths Are From 0.6% Of The Population
by Avik Roy, 5-26-20
Americans are vigorously debating the merits of continuing to lock down the U.S. economy to prevent the spread of COVID-19. A single statistic may hold the key to resolving this debate: the astounding share of deaths occurring in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
Nursing homes and assisted living facilities: The #1 COVID problem
2.1 million Americans, representing 0.62% of the U.S. population, reside in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. (Nursing homes are residences for seniors needing help with activities of daily living, such as taking a shower or getting dressed, who also require 24/7 medical supervision; assisted living facilities are designed for seniors who need help with activities of daily living, but don’t require full-time on-site medical supervision.)
According to an analysis that Gregg Girvan and I conducted for the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, as of May 22, in the 43 states that currently report such figures, an astounding 42% of all COVID-19 deaths have taken place in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
Let’s look at that again.
As of May 22, in the 43 states that currently report such figures, an astounding 42% of all COVID-19 deaths have taken place in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
And you couldn’t see that a captive audience, like nursing facilities in your state, were the very last place you should have purposely inserted a terrible virus?
Over TEN THOUSAND people killed, who could have been here today. The bulk of them killed in New York and New Jersey nursing facilities.
We also got this:
Report: Man who beat elderly veteran was diagnosed with coronavirus, quarantined into nursing home
Jaydon Hayden, 20 years old, filmed himself punching multiple elderly people repeatedly until they bled at the Westwood Nursing Center.
The man in the video that went viral was a 75-year-old United States Veteran.
We have discovered that Hayden was only brought to the nursing home last week, and he was staying there because he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, you’re not alone.
Hayden’s father spoke to the local news station Fox2. He said that Hayden has mental health issues, including autism, and severe behavioral issues, and while he does box, he’s normally not vicious.
His father (who wished to not be identified) said that Hayden called him from the group home he’s living at to say that he wasn’t sleeping well, was hearing voices, and was feeling anxious.
Last week, he went to a mental health facility in Ann Arbor. While there, he was diagnosed with the virus and workers told his father they were taking him to another facility to quarantine.
His father said that Hayden should not have been taken to the nursing home and he would not have consented if he knew that’s where they were taking him.
So a man with a history of mental problems, because he also had Wuhan-19, was placed in a Detroit nursing facility.
Who does that? Why do people no longer think things through? And then who says, in retrospect, “well, you know, old people die. Get over it.”
Then this from NY1.com:
Why the Extent of Coronavirus Carnage in New York’s Nursing Homes May Never be Known
by Michael Herzenberg, 5-28-20
BRONX, N.Y. – The coronavirus death toll in nursing homes and adult care facilities in New York State has now exceeded 6,000.
Residents have been especially vulnerable to COVID-19 and advocates say we still don’t have a true picture of just how many residents of these facilities have died in New York.
Six thousand. Twice the 9-11 death toll. And it could have been avoided by not making an affirmative decision by Governor Andrew Cuomo to place people with Wuhan-19 into nursing facilities, places having the least-trained staff, the least amount of appropriate equipment, and the most vulnerable persons in the entire state to a red-hot virus.
“Every time you turned around somebody was dying,” said Sharon Anderson, a resident of Bronxwood Assisted Living, an adult care facility in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx.
Anderson said she was kept in the dark as the coronavirus swept through the building and took the lives of fellow residents.
“They don’t even want you to ask questions about these people and if you ask, they don’t tell you,” said Anderson.
She is one of the first residents of a local adult care facility to speak publicly about what it was like as the coronavirus toll around her mounted.
But it’s not just residents left without information.
Advocates and lawyers say the state’s accounting at Nursing Homes and Adult Care Facility deaths, which now stands at 6,035, remains an incomplete picture of what has happened to residents of the facilities.
Finally:
Initially, the state only counted residents who tested positive for COVID-19 and died at the facility. Then it added to the tally residents who only had a suspected case and died.
But the state is not including in these figures adult care facility residents who were transferred to a hospital and died of the coronavirus there. The Health Department says that’s “to maintain consistency and reliability in the data as presented, and to avoid any potential for double-counting.”
However, nursing home and elder abuse attorney John Dalli explains the state’s tally of 6,035 nursing home deaths is not accurate.
“I would suspect that number is probably somewhere around ten to fifteen percent higher than that and it could be more. It’s just too difficult to tell,” Dalli said.
The human toll is real. Meterologist Janice Dean lost both of her in-laws to the Wuhan-19 virus invading their nursing facility.
From FoxNews.com:
Janice Dean slams Cuomo nursing home policy after losing in-laws to COVID-19: ‘Not just numbers on a curve’
by Yael Halon, 5-21-20
Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Thursday that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo‘s failed nursing home policy should be “one of the biggest” stories of the year after both of her parents-in-law lost their lives to the coronavirus.
“I have not seen the coverage of this … ,” an emotional Dean said. “Twenty percent of our lost loved ones are from nursing homes … because Governor Cuomo and several other governors forced COVID-recovering patients into nursing homes.”
There is no sign on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s desk saying THE BUCK STOPS HERE. The buck simply passes through.
Cuomo essentially sent death into nursing homes containing the MOST VULNERABLE and LEAST ABLE to fight the virus, a population EVERYONE AGREES should be the MOST PROTECTED, staffed by the LEAST EQUIPPED to battle Wuhan-19.
We couldn’t protect the most vulnerable. Simultaneously, the least vulnerable in our society were themselves locked down. What do you do in a pandemic? You quarantine and keep safe the most infirm, those most susceptible.
You don’t quarantine the healthy.
Yes, a single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic. Or at least 6,000 + deaths in the state of New York.
BZ
