26 March 2021: A Public Vigil for a Victim of Governor Cuomo's Deadly Directive

Families Gather for Vigil One Year After Cuomo Directive Sending COVID-19 Patients into Nursing Homes

This article describes one family's loss they attribute to Governor Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

Aida Pabey and her siblings are grieving the loss of their mother Elba Pabey.

They say she died of COVID-19 on April 6 at the Isabella Geriatric Center in Washington Heights, not long after Governor Andrew Cuomo made the controversial order to allow COVID-19 patients back into nursing homes.

“That doesn’t make any sense. There are vulnerable population and you’re gonna bring people that are COVID positive? And I feel like it’s more fault, like, I could’ve at least kept her to stay in my home, but I couldn’t anymore,” said Pabey.

The Pabeys were among the many families and elected officials who attended a vigil at Foley Square Thursday to mark one year since that March 25 directive from the governor.

Using statistics and the known median time from initial exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus to death attributed to COVID-19, Pabey's death occurred early within the window of time in which the deaths of New York nursing home relatives could potentially be traced to the Cuomo administration's 25 March 2020 directive.

Changes in trend associated with that policy's implementation would most likely be established between the dates of 11 April 2020 and 15 April 2020 related to any COVID patients transferred into a nursing home on 25 March 2020, though that does not account for the affected residents' existing state of health. Residents whose state of health was already in poor condition would be more likely to die earlier after their initial exposure to the coronavirus.

That's exactly why one wouldn't place COVID patients into nursing homes without testing to verify if they were still contagious. And that's exactly what Governor Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive mandated and what his administration enforced.