Congress investigating Cuomo's nursing home actions

Governor Andrew Cuomo gives his daily coronavirus update at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. April 21, 2020 WBEN Photo/Mike Baggerman
Photo credit Governor Andrew Cuomo gives his daily coronavirus update at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. April 21, 2020 WBEN Photo/Mike Baggerman

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – Federal leaders are criticizing Governor Andrew Cuomo and other governors for their role in the spread of coronavirus at nursing homes and are planning to investigate the actions that may have added to the death toll for older people.

Western New York Congressman Tom Reed and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said Congress will investigate the approximately 3,500 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths at New York nursing homes. The state also estimated an additional 2,500 deaths, but could not confirm that those residents died because of coronavirus. Thousands more have died at other nursing homes in other states.

Specifically, the republican members of Congress blasted Governor Cuomo’s executive order that required nursing homes to take in residents that were still positive with coronavirus. They said it helped facilitate the spread of the disease.

“This is a complete failure of leadership,” Reed said Thursday in a call with reporters. “I will tell you, it’s more egregious because we watched this in real time. I’ve been dealing with this issue since day one in early March because we did daily calls with our hospitals. We did daily calls with our health networks. We did daily calls with those facilities that had control and responsibility of nursing homes. I heard the concern for these people in real time and no one would listen in Albany in regards to this horrific order.”

Specifically, they point out how Cuomo blamed CDC guidelines for allowing residents to return. There was no guideline that said so. His statement was independently fact checked as mostly false by @PolitiFact https://t.co/i6sWqsxqXR

— WBEN NewsRadio 930AM (@NewsRadio930) June 18, 2020

Reed said written statements with Albany over concerns of the governor’s actions went ignored.

“If you want a show horse running the place in New York, that’s what these press conferences were all about,” Reed said of Cuomo. “Given the favorable reviews he got from the public and the press. When I tell you, when you peal back the onion and curtain, there was no work horse in that office. There was no responsible leader making these decisions. When he made the decision, stuck by it for 46 days.”

Reed said Cuomo then had the “audacity” to falsely blame the Trump administration and the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention for the mandate. Independent fact-checker PolitiFact ruled that Cuomo’s comments were “Mostly False”.

“What I’m asking is for the governor to come clean, acknowledge this mistake, and make sure that when the virus comes back that we’re working together to protect our grandparents,” Reed said.

Scalise wants Governor Cuomo plus the governors of Pennsylvania, Michigan, California, and New Jersey to answer for their actions. He wrote a letter to them last week asking for data about the number of COVID-19 patients who returned to nursing homes.

“I have not received that back yet,” Scalise said. “My staff has been asking for weeks now.”