Former Governor Andrew Cuomo has been subpoenaed by a House subcommittee tasked with investigating the nation’s response to COVID-19. According to documents obtained Tuesday by ABC News, the House Select Subcommittee is seeking to ask Cuomo about his directive instructing nursing homes to admit recovering COVID-positive patients from hospitals, a move that resulted in increased deaths in nursing homes.
Cuomo was asked by Finger Lakes News Radio’s Lucas Day during an October 2020 conference call if the state’s order that nursing homes could not bar admission or readmission to a resident based on a positive COVID-19 test might have led to more than 6,500 nursing home deaths.
“That’s not why they lost a loved one in a nursing home. Your question — the premise of your question is just actually wrong. People were lost in nursing homes, were lost because that’s where the virus preys.
“The virus preys on senior citizens,” insisted Cuomo.
“There’s a whole report done with data. The way the virus got into nursing homes was from two possible carriers — before we even knew about it,” continued the governor, ignoring the seeming impossibility of infected staffers at one nursing home having any impact on all the others.
“The staff, working staff, at the nursing home brought in the virus, or potentially family members before we stopped family visits brought in the virus and this happened at a time back in February when we didn’t even know the virus was circulating in New York State, that’s how the virus got into the nursing home,” he added.
In May 2020, New York reversed the policy announcing hospitals could no longer send patients into nursing homes with a positive COVID case.
ABC News goes on to report Cuomo is requested by the Committee to appear for a deposition in Washington on May 24th.
