12 November 2021: Transcripts - Cuomo's Anti-Jewish Politics Steered COVID Policies

Ex-Health Official Told Investigators Cuomo’s Cluster Zones Didn’t Follow Metrics

This report of testimony collected as part of the state attorney general's sexual harassment probe of Andrew M. Cuomo delves into another aspect of his administration's COVID policies, which they used to target their perceived political enemies:

The color-coded, COVID-19 hotspot zones established by then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last October didn’t in fact follow specific metrics, a former state Health Department official told investigators last spring, in an apparent vindication of Orthodox Jewish communities who alleged their neighborhoods were targeted for shutdown by the since-disgraced governor.

“There were metrics that our staff would work on, but they would only be announced that people met the metrics if that came from the [Executive] Chamber,” said the unnamed official, who was interviewed by attorneys investigating various allegations of misconduct by Cuomo, after she had resigned from the Health Department. “Some areas met the metrics and would be called a zone and others met the metrics and would not be called a zone.”

Attorney General Letita James this week released the full transcripts of the interviews by the investigators, who were looking into allegations including Cuomo’s harassment of state employees, his handling of COVID, and his publishing a book about his leadership during COVID.

Jewish activists who had fought the shutdown said the Health official’s statements provide proof of what the activists had alleged since the Cluster Action Initiative was first enacted.

Avi Schick, an attorney at the Troutman Pepper firm, who represented Agudath Israel and local shuls and won a preliminary injunction at the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the Initiative, told Hamodia on Thursday that the Health official’s testimony “confirms what we have known all along: the metrics and zones used to target our neighborhoods and shutter our shuls were the product of politics, not science.”

This report continues to describe the lawsuits filed against the administration, where the U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled in favor of the religious groups.