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AOC calls for 'full investigation' into Cuomo's handling of nursing homes
Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez has joined growing calls for an investigation into New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.“I … stand with our local officials calling for a full investigation of the Cuomo administration’s handling of nursing homes during Covid-19,” the high-profile progressive congresswoman, who represents a New York City district, said in a statement on Friday.Last week, it was revealed that a Cuomo aide told New York legislators the true picture of nursing home deaths wasn’t given last year, for fear it would be used against the governor during an investigation launched by Donald Trump’s justice department.Cuomo, who has already published a book about his handling of the crisis, has dismissed claims of wrongdoing. On Friday, he said information was not produced fast enough, which created “a void. And conspiracy theories and politics and rumors fill that void and you can’t allow inaccurate information to go unanswered.”But in January, New York state attorney general Leticia James said nursing home deaths from Covid-19 were undercounted by as much as 50%. Now, federal prosecutors in New York City and the FBI are reported to be investigating and state officials are seeking to strip Cuomo of emergency powers.The governor is under increasing pressure and Ocasio-Cortez’s intervention adds drama to a combustible mix.As a former federal housing secretary and son of former governor Mario Cuomo, the governor is a pillar of the Democratic centrist establishment. Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez has rapidly risen to become a prominent voice on the progressive wing of the party.In her statement, she said: “Thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers lost their lives in nursing homes throughout the pandemic. Their loved ones and the public deserve answers and transparency from their elected leadership, and the secretary to the governor’s remarks warrant a full investigation.”In March, at the outset of the pandemic, New York reeled from a surge in cases. While Cuomo rose to worldwide prominence as the face of efforts to tackle the problem, an administration directive said nursing homes should not deny admission or readmission to a patient because they had Covid-19.That policy was rescinded two months later. Keeping the true number of nursing home residents who died hidden would theoretically deflect any blame for a bad policy choice. Cuomo has blamed staff entering nursing homes for spreading the virus to the vulnerable population, not patients brought in with Covid-19. He has said it would be discriminatory not to let those patients into nursing homes.The scandal has spread to CNN, a network which has a major presence in New York and for which Cuomo’s younger brother, Chris Cuomo, is a primetime host.Interviews between the two brothers went viral last spring but the network has now reinstated a prohibition on Chris Cuomo interviewing or covering his brother.The last time the governor appeared on his brother’s show, in June, Chris Cuomo asked: “Nursing homes. People died there. They didn’t have to. It was mismanaged. And the operators have been given immunity. What do you have to say about that?”Andrew Cuomo replied that some of what his brother said was incorrect, adding: “But that’s OK. It’s your show. You say whatever you want to say.” More
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Kamala Harris promises federal relief for Texas victims of winter storms
Kamala Harris has sent a message to residents of Texas and other states hit by power outages and prolonged winter conditions that help is on the way.“I just want to mention all of those folks in Texas and the mid-Atlantic,” the vice-president said in a live interview on Wednesday morning on NBC’s Today show, her first national network interview since taking office.“I know they can’t see us right now, because they’re without electricity, but the president and I are thinking of them, and really hope we can do everything that is possible through the signing of the emergency orders to get federal relief to support them.”Biden signed a declaration of emergency for Texas on Sunday, opening the way for state officials to move more quickly to tap a larger share of federal aid.Harris also echoed a promise made by Joe Biden on Tuesday night that the United States would have enough doses on hand to vaccinate “all Americans” by July. “We have a vaccine now, and that is great, but we need to get it in the arms of all Americans,” Harris told the Today show host Savannah Guthrie.“And as the president said last night, we expect that that will be done in terms of having the available supply by the end of July, and so we are very excited about that.”Harris touted the speed with which the federal government is sending vaccine doses to states, a rate the White House pegs at 13.5m doses a week or a 57% increase since the inauguration.“As quickly as we’re producing it, we’re getting it out,” she said.Challenged on a guideline issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying teachers could return to work without being vaccinated, Harris said the White House felt strongly that teachers should be bumped up in line for vaccine doses.“Teachers should be a priority,” she said. “We think they should be a priority, and the states are making decisions individually.”Teachers’ unions have expressed concern that Biden’s plan to reopen most elementary schools in the next three months could expose teachers to health risks.While the federal government issues recommendations about who should receive vaccine doses in what order, each state maintains its own priority list.Harris said that a $1.9tn Covid relief and economic stimulus package the Biden administration is trying to guide through Congress would help make schools safer by providing funds to improve ventilation, erect social distancing barriers and other measures.“Our goal is that as many K-8 schools as possible will reopen within the first 100 days,” Harris said. “Our goal is that it will be five days a week. And so we have to work to achieve that goal.”To respond to complaints from states that there remained a lack of coordination on federally supplied aid, Harris said the Biden administration had begun to put national protocols in place to support states “that need that kind of coordination and support”.As part of its vaccine initiative, federal agencies have doubled direct shipments of vaccine doses to pharmacies, Harris said, and expanded a program to ship doses to community health centers serving vulnerable populations.“We just want to say to everybody, just please get vaccinated,” Harris said. “And in the interim, wear a mask, social distance and make sure you wash your hands and do that frequently.”Harris deflected a question about whether Donald Trump should face criminal charges after being acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial earlier this month.“You know, right now Savannah I’m focused on what we need to do to get relief to American families,” Harris said. “And that is my highest priority, it is our administration’s highest priority, it’s our job, it’s a job we were elected to do, and that’s our focus.“I haven’t reviewed the case through the lens of being a prosecutor, I’m reviewing the case of Covid in America through the lens of being vice-president of America.” More
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Andrew Cuomo insists New York didn't cover up nursing home Covid-19 deaths
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Under fire over his management of the coronavirus’ lethal path through New York’s nursing homes, Andrew Cuomo insisted Monday the state didn’t cover up deaths – but the governor acknowledged that officials should have moved faster to release some information sought by lawmakers, the public and the press.
“All the deaths in the nursing homes and hospitals were always fully, publicly and accurately reported,” the Democratic governor said, weeks after the state was forced to acknowledge that its count of nursing home deaths excluded thousands of residents who perished after being taken to hospitals.
He explained the matter Monday as a difference of “categorization”, with the state counting where deaths occurred and others seeking total deaths of nursing home residents, regardless of the location.
“We should have done a better job of providing as much information as we could as quickly as we could,” he said. “No excuses. I accept responsibility for that.”
Cuomo, who has seen his image as a pandemic-taming leader dented by a series of disclosures involving nursing homes in recent weeks, said he would propose reforms involving nursing homes and hospitals in the upcoming state budget, without giving details.
But he continued to blame a “toxic political environment”, and “disinformation” for much of the criticism surrounding his administration’s handling of the issue.
State lawmakers have been calling for investigations, stripping Cuomo of his emergency powers and even his resignation after new details emerged this week about why certain nursing home data wasn’t disclosed for months, despite requests from lawmakers and others.
First, a report late last month from the Democratic state attorney general, Letitia James, examined the administration’s failure to tally nursing home residents’ deaths at hospitals.
The state then acknowledged the total number of long-term care residents’ deaths is nearly 15,000, up from the 8,500 previously disclosed.
Next, in reply to a freedom of information request from the Associated Press in May, the state health department released records this week showing that more than 9,000 recovering coronavirus patients in New York were discharged from hospitals into nursing homes in the pandemic’s early months – over 40% higher than the state had said previously, because it wasn’t counting residents who returned from hospitals to homes where they already had lived.
Then it emerged that Melissa DeRosa, a top Cuomo aide, had told Democratic lawmakers that the tally of nursing home residents’ deaths at hospitals – data that legislators had sought since August – was delayed because officials worried that the information was “going to be used against us” by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice.
Echoing an explanation DeRosa gave Friday, Cuomo said the state was slow to respond to the lawmakers because officials prioritized dealing with requests from the justice department and were busy dealing with the work of the pandemic: “It’s not like people were in the south of France,” he said.
“When we didn’t provide information, it … created confusion and cynicism and pain for the families. The truth is: everybody did everything they could.” More - in US Politics
Fauci says he worried getting Covid at Trump White House
Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert and chief medical and coronavirus adviser to Joe Biden, revealed on Monday that he had been nervous entering the White House when many there were coming down with Covid-19 late in Donald Trump’s presidency.Fauci is 80 years old and said that as such he was acutely aware that he was at high risk of suffering a “serious outcome” if he became infected by coronavirus, he told Axios in an interview clip posted online.“I didn’t fixate on that, but it was in the back of my mind because I had to be out there,” he said, adding: “I mean, particularly when I was going to the White House every day, when the White House was sort of a super-spreader location. I mean, that made me a little bit nervous.”Last October Donald Trump contracted Covid-19 and was taken by helicopter to Walter Reed military medical center, just outside Washington DC, where he was hospitalized and underwent treatment before being released.His falling ill followed a crowded Rose Garden ceremony during which the then president announced Amy Coney Barrett as his supreme court nominee, which was later criticized as a super-spreader event, with many not wearing masks while sitting side-by-side and congregating in crowded rooms inside the White House.At least seven figures in attendance tested positive for coronavirus, including Trump, his former counsellor, Kellyanne Conway, and two Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Mike Lee.Fauci was not at that particular event but as the leading public health official on Trump’s White House coronavirus task force, he had to go to the White House frequently.Trump played down the coronavirus from the start, despite knowing its dangers, repeatedly claimed it would disappear, discouraged face masks and exhorted businesses and schools to stay open. More
