By Marisa Herman(NEWSMAX)
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is against an independent investigation into the nursing home deaths during the coronavirus pandemic in the state, Fox News reports.
Cuomo said he “wouldn’t do an investigation” during his Monday press conference citing calls for a probe are political.
He said “you’d have to be blind” to think requests to take a deeper look into coronavirus deaths linked to state nursing homes amid the pandemic are “not political.”
“Just look at where it comes from and look at the sources and look at their political affiliations and look at who wrote the letter in Congress and look at what publications raise it and what media outward networks raise it,” he said of the request for an investigation. “It’s kind of incredible.”
Cuomo has claimed that the thousands of nursing home deaths are not related to his March 25 order that required nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients who were medically stable without testing them. He has stated that the deaths were caused by infected staff members who spread the virus to residents, according to Fox News.
A report released by the state last month helps explain Cuomo’s position, but some experts have questioned the report.
The report states that 80% of the 310 nursing homes in the state that took coronavirus patients already had cases before Cuomo issued his order, which was later rescinded.
Cuomo has pointed the finger at “dirty politics” for the criticism he has faced over his order.
He said it was a “political conspiracy that the deaths in nursing homes were preventable.”
On Monday, Cuomo pointed out how New York compares to other states.
“You look at where New York is as a percentage of nursing home deaths,” he said. “It’s all the way at the bottom of the list of states.”
Last month, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., who is a leader of a House subcommittee on coronavirus, wrote a letter to Cuomo stating “[b]lame-shifting, name-calling and half-baked data manipulations will not make the facts or the questions they raise go away.”
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi responded: “We’re used to Republicans denying science but now they are screeching about time, space and dates on a calendar to distract from the federal government’s many, many, embarrassing failures. No one is buying it.”
Cuomo said experts can “sensibly” investigate the coronavirus deaths in nursing homes in the state, which “would not be political at all,” and would be “trusted” by Democrats, Republicans and independents.
