New York's nursing home 'disaster' is Cuomo's doing

Nursing homes and other long-term health care facilities have suffered the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

In Connecticut, for example, 481 of 545 cornavirus deaths in the state during just one recent weeklong period were nursing home patients, the Hartford Courant reported.

In New York, the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., the problem has been exacerbated by an order requiring nursing homes to admit patients infected with the virus.

New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin chastised Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo for claiming he wasn't aware of the order.

"If you are the governor of the state that is the national epicenter of the deadly outbreak, you don’t have the luxury of not knowing, or pretending not to know, about the horrendous carnage in nursing homes and rehabilitation centers," Goodwin wrote. "And if your policies contributed to that carnage, the decent thing to do is to own your mistakes and fix them.

But Goodwin pointed out that Cuomo showed when he answered questions from reporters that he, in fact, had knowledge of the order.

"The nursing home has to make the decision," Cuomo said. "If they don’t think they can take care of someone, all they have to do is say no."

But that isn't true, Goodwin wrote, according to nursing home executives.

"The March 25 order that forced infected patients on them allows for no exceptions and has not been changed," he wrote.

He cited a "killer" paragraph that states: "No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH 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."

Some nursing homes had reported no deaths before the order was issued March 25, Goodwin noted.

Cuomo's claim that state policy mirrored federal actions was disproven in an Associated Press report, and he even started an investigation into nursing homes.

"For the owners and staffs, the threats were a warning to be silent and the investigation is a bid to pin the blame for thousands of deaths on them," Goodwin wrote.

The Courant reported that between April 22 and April 29 there were 545 new deaths from coronavirus in the state. By the end of that period, 1,249 of the state's 2,089 fatalities were nursing home residents.

"This brings tears to everyone’s eyes," said epidemiologist Dr. Albert Ko.

The report said Connecticut is not alone.

Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island have also seen similar increases. On Tuesday, New York announced 1,700 more deaths in nursing homes than had been previously reported.

In New Hampshire, Public Radio reported more than three in four COVID-19 deaths happened in long-term care homes.

State officials said nearly 77% of coronavirus-related deaths reported by May 4 were linked to outbreaks at nursing homes.

The BBC reported similar concentrations in other parts of the world.

"Care homes across Western Europe have been ravaged by coronavirus and in Spain alone there have been more than 16,000 deaths, many around the capital Madrid. The true number may never be known, but families are asking why so many of their elderly relatives were lost," the network said.

Nearly 6,000 people have died in nursing homes in Madrid after showing symptoms. Spanish public prosecutors are investigating possible crimes including manslaughter for neglect, mistreatment and abandonment, the BBC said.

Twitter news aggregator Twitchy noted New York Mayor Bill de Blasio scolded nursing homes, saying many are "for-profit organizations."

.@NYCMayor De Blasio on nursing homes: "A lot of these are for-profit organizations. I think there’s going to be a lot of questions about whether they put their residents first or whether they put profit first" pic.twitter.com/KfPZNAXH0d

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 6, 2020

Former New York Post and Washington Examiner editor Seth Mandel pointed out the New York City nursing homes were "ordered to take Covid patients into a closed environment full of the most vulnerable."

"De Blasio is genuinely a horrid person, and his campaign of human sacrifice should never be forgotten," he wrote on Twitter.

Another Twitter user wrote: "That is some *evil* gaslighting, right there. They didn't take those patients to make a buck – they took them because NY government *forced* them to."

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