28 March 2021: Governor Cuomo's Rationing of COVID Testing

Cuomo admin. kept COVID tests from nursing homes as gov’s kin got them

More evidence is emerging of the Cuomo administration's rationing of COVID tests to the detriment of New York's nursing homes in the earliest months of the coronavirus pandemic. This report details new aspects of that scandal from April 2020. Here's a short excerpt:

Troubled by reports of COVID-19 running roughshod through nursing homes early in the pandemic, Jack Wheeler, the manager of upstate Steuben County, requested in April 2020 that the state Department of Health provide enough tests for every resident and staff member of three facilities in his jurisdiction.

The DOH, however, only came through with enough supplies for one of the three facilities, Hornell Gardens, with the precious diagnostic tests then hard to find, Wheeler told The Post.

That lackluster response came, as The Albany Times-Union reported last week, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo allegedly pulled strings to secure tests for bigwigs connected to his administration, as well as relatives including his brother, CNN host Chris Cuomo, and their elderly mother, Matilda.

This episode provides another example of how health care under a single-payer system would work, with politicians using their influence to determine who receives what quality of care, at what time, and in what quantity.

Here's how Jack Wheeler described his reaction to learning of Governor Cuomo's COVID testing scandal:

“I’m furious because testing of the most vulnerable population should be the absolute priority and a simple request,” Wheeler told The Post. “But [that] high-level, connected people had that luxury when we couldn’t even get people in the nursing homes tested is just infuriating.”...

He wasn't alone, as this anecdote from Steuben County Health Director Darlene Smith indicates:

“Those nursing homes were raging with positive cases and deaths and the purpose of universal swabbing of both residents and staff was to identify positive cases, isolate the positive staff and … get the positive residents cohorted together to prevent further spread,” said Smith.

“We had to beg, borrow, and steal basically and were able to get test kits from other counties,” she continued. “Now knowing [that] what limited supply there was was being hoarded now for friends and family — it’s criminal. It’s just really hard to understand.”

A Cuomo spokesman has denied allegations of preferential treatment outlined by The Times-Union, calling them “insincere efforts to rewrite the past.”

The Cuomo spokesman referenced in that last sentence is Richard Azzopardi.