Cuomo Messed Up on COVID Nursing Home Deaths But His Conservative Critics Can't Be Taken Seriously

Nearly a year ago, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was the most popular politician in the country with his reassuring COVID briefings. This made for talk that Cuomo, not Joe Biden should be the Democratic Party standard bearer for the White House.

In retrospect, I think Democrats are happy they stuck with Biden. Although Cuomo initially received wide praise one decision has come back to bite him. In late March, Cuomo ordered that nursing home patients who were released from the hospital after COVID were to be returned to their nursing homes. This policy would end in early May. 

There was the lingering question of how many nursing home patients had died as a result of the policy. In late January, New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed the Cuomo Administration had undercounted the number of deaths by 50%. Things turned worse last week when a top Cuomo aide admitted to withholding this information. Subsequently, the New York Department of Health finally revealed the policy had resulted in more than 15,000 deaths. Given that there have been 37,328 COVID-19 deaths in New York State as of this writing, nursing home fatalities account for 43.7% of the toll.

This number could have been prevented. It is bad enough that Cuomo pursued a bad policy. His administration made matters worse by not being forthcoming with the numbers. While Cuomo did finally admit making a "mistake" yesterday the damage has been done. An argument can be made that this warrants his resignation or at the very minimum that he not seek another term for Governor. 

Needless to say, Cuomo's conservative critics are having a field day. While Cuomo was in the wrong it is difficult to take his conservative critics seriously as they turn a blind eye to former President Trump's ineffective and reckless approach to COVID-19. 

The bottom line is that while Cuomo ought to be held to account, his conservative critics are in no position to lecture Cuomo about anything so long as they either ignore or whitewash Trump's disgraceful response to COVID-19 which President Biden now must clean up.