York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was among the first in a weeklong parade of speakers to issue scathing critiques of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response.
Cuomo’s criticisms drew a quick reply in a tweet from Michael R. Caputo, an assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.
"Does the #DemConvention know @NYGovCuomo forced nursing homes across NY to take in COVID positive patients and planted the seeds of infection that killed thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers?" he wrote.
Bottom line: State and federal rules didn’t force nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients, but many of them believed they had no other choice.
In a July analysis of COVID-19 nursing home deaths, the state concluded that the deadly virus was introduced by nursing home staff members rather than sick patients.
Although nursing homes felt pressure to accept COVID-positive patients, they were not actually forced to do so. State regulations require nursing homes to accept patients only if they can care for them, and they could have refused them on those grounds.
In addition, it’s unclear the extent to which the governor’s policy was responsible for nursing home COVID-19 deaths. Infection control is a longstanding problem in nursing homes that predates the pandemic and a report showed peak numbers of nursing home deaths came prior to the peak influx of patients as a result of Cuomo’s advisory. While the introduction of COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes no doubt had an effect on infection spread, Caputo’s statement suggests it was solely responsible. That’s not what the evidence shows.
We rate this Mostly False.
Amazing. Direct and total evidence that Cuomo came up with policies that killed people and we're told "Well it's not so clear and if you look at it from this perspective then maybe..." Anonymous staffers say that Trump maligned veterans and we're told "It's a fact! It's obviously true!"
ReplyDeletewhere is your total evidence?
ReplyDelete