The devil is in the details. Here are the details:
The CDC guidance say that, “nursing homes should admit any individuals that they would normally admit to their facility, including individuals from hospitals where a case of COVID-19 was/is present.” The CDC also required that “any newly admitted and readmitted resident with a COVID-19 case to be placed in a designated COVID-19 care unit, while those who have met the criteria to have recovered can return to a regular unit in the nursing home,” according to Fox News.
Here is the spin:
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has doubled down on his office’s handling of elderly COVID-19 patients. On Saturday, the governor said he was following orders from the Trump administration when he put over 4,500 senior coronavirus patients in nursing homes.
He noted he understands the controversy behind the decision, but claimed he isn’t trying to politicize the move.
“New York followed the president’s agency’s guidance, so that depoliticizes it,” stated Cuomo. “What New York did was follow what the Republican administration said to do.”
Over 3,000 virus patients died in nursing homes under this policy. Critics have suggested the governor is unfairly placing blame on President Trump.
Earlier this week, state assembly member Ron Kim urged the governor to acknowledge “it was a mistake” to let nursing homes accept coronavirus positive patients. Kim said Cuomo’s decision ended up costing thousands of lives.
“I was absolutely shocked that the state of New York sent so many people back to nursing homes, when nursing homes aren’t hospitals,” he said. “These are COVID positive patients that should have been treated at hospitals or other facilities that were equipped to take them in.”
According to Kim, it would be helpful to those who lost loved ones to see Cuomo step up and admit the state’s wrongdoing.
