24 March 2022: NY Pols Call for Probe of Cuomo COVID Nursing Home Deaths

NY pols mark 2 years after ‘killer’ Cuomo nursing home order, demand probe

A bipartisan group of NY politicians are calling for an independent probe of Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals on the eve of the second anniversary of Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive. Here's an excerpt from this report:

During a press conference in Albany, an ideologically diverse coalition rallied behind a bill to designate March 25 as “We Care Remembrance Day,” and another to create a body tasked with studying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic response on deaths in nursing homes.

Friday marks exactly two years since the state Department of Health under then-commissioner Howard Zucker implemented a directive that required nursing homes to readmit residents who tested positive for the coronavirus.

“It wasn’t just an executive order — it was a declaration of eldercide in the state of New York,” charged Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), a fierce Cuomo critic whose uncle died in April 2020 of COVID-19 in a Flushing nursing home.

“This executive order was one of the biggest mistakes in the history of the state of New York,” Kim said.

Indeed, it was. The report provides a summary of the consequences of the deadly directive:

The infamous state Department of Health order, rescinded under public pressure on May 10, 2020, forced sickened seniors into facilities housing those most vulnerable to COVID-19 and increased the death toll among residents of them, according to a New York State Bar Association report.

It led to a spike of “several hundred and possibly more than 1,000” fatalities in state-regulated nursing homes, according to a watchdog report released in February 2021.

Here's what the politicians propose to do about it:

... a bipartisan group of state lawmakers are backing legislation (S. 2067/A. 3162) that would establish “a temporary state commission to study and investigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic response on deaths in nursing homes.”

Unfortunately, the bipartisan group of politicians don't have enough votes among themselves to pass the bill establishing a commission to probe Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. New York's Assembly and State Senate are dominated by members of the state Democratic Party, for whom such a probe would adversely impact the interests of party members holding positions within the state government, particularly at New York's Department of Health.

We don't think they're doing themselves any favors by taking that position. Yet that's what they're choosing to do, from replacement NY governor Kathy Hochul on down. Then again, that's why they ousted Cuomo over sexual harassment allegations instead of the much more serious nursing home deaths scandals - it provided the means to surgically limit the damage to their apparent interest in holding as much power in New York's state government as they can.