By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-15 02:40:47 | Updated at 2025-03-15 09:55:41
7 hours ago
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo continued to deflect blame over his administration’s controversial directive to send infected COVID-19 patients into nursing homes — which resulted in thousands of deaths — during the worst period of the killer pandemic.
During an interview with FOX 5 NY, Cuomo, who recently entered the Big Apple’s mayoral race, offered a half-baked apology to repeated questions about the pandemic and failed to assume responsibility for the disastrous March 2020 decision that shuttled sick patients into senior care facilities statewide.
The disgraced pol, who resigned from the governor’s office in 2021 following a slew of scandals, instead placed fault on health care experts who he said “did not know how many people were going to die.”
“COVID was a horrendous, once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. It focused on nursing homes, as you know, because that’s where COVID preyed the most,” Cuomo, 67, told reporter Rosanna Scotto at the Rain Boston Road Senior Center in the Bronx Friday.
“Two million Americans died during COVID. Every one of them was a tragedy. People died in nursing homes in New York under the worst situations imaginable.”
When asked if he owed New Yorkers whose family members died inside nursing homes an apology, Cuomo responded: “I’m sorry for what they had to go through.”
“It was horrific,” he continued, adding that he followed the regulations advised by health experts.
“I get why the health department wanted these restrictions, but it was a terrible, terrible situation.”
Cuomo then questioned why it took the federal government so long to create proper testing and vaccines to combat the virus, claiming the feds knew about COVID months before it led to a nationwide shutdown.
He also touted New York’s low death rate during that time and refuted accusations he misled the public on the number of nursing home deaths, saying the topic was “very political and very weaponized.”
The ex-governor, who has repeatedly sidestepped questions regarding his handling of the health crisis, came under fire following his devastating March 25, 2020, “must admit” order that saw thousands of recovering COVID patients admitted into the state’s nursing homes.
Critics have blamed the move for as many as 15,000 nursing home deaths. Cuomo was also accused of undercounting the nursing home death toll by as much as 50%.
A rep for the mayoral hopeful doubled down on his decision to follow federal policy and guidance in the early months of the pandemic.
“Five years later the facts are clear: according to the US DOJ IG, the New York State Attorney General and the Hochul administration’s after action report, New York’s nursing home admissions policy followed federal guidance, a dozen other blue and red states did as well, and, despite being hit first and worst, retrospective statistics show that New York fared better than all but 11 states pro rata in COVID nursing home fatalities,” Rich Azzopardi told The Post.
“Every single COVID death was a tragedy, but — as the DOJ IG reported — it’s reprehensible that peoples’ pain has been weaponized for political purposes.”
