The Shameless Gaslighting by Andrew Cuomo’s Defenders
On March 25, New York governor Andrew Cuomo made one of deadliest mistakes of the coronavirus crisis, signing an executive order forcing nursing homes in his state to accept patients who tested positive for coronavirus. Around 4,800 New Yorkers died from COVID-19 in those nursing homes from March to May — approximately 25 percent of all fatalities in the state.
Many medical professionals opposed the policy. A report by ProPublica, certainly no right-wing outlet, found that deaths had spiked after Cuomo’s order. States issuing similar policies — Michigan and New Jersey — saw similar disasters unfold.
By any standard, the New York tristate area’s numbers are the worst in the country. By most measures, the numbers are some of the worst in the world. As the New York Times noted in May, New York City seeded the wave of outbreaks across the nation. Some of the carnage was likely unavoidable, but we can attribute the high number of nursing-home deaths, at the very least, to Cuomo’s ineptitude.
Yet, even as his state was failing to meet its most serious challenge since 9/11 — it wasn’t until May 6 that cleaners began disinfecting the subway system, for example — Cuomo was busy taking softball questions on national cable news from his obsequious brother, Chris. On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon marveled
