(Originally published May 19th, 2020)
A recently published headline reflecting some national polls stated that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is currently one of America’s most popular politicians.
As a lifelong, born and bred New Yorker, my immediate visceral reaction to that report was both a major eye roll and a sense of palpable disgust. I realize of course that most of the nation does not get to see the daily, cleverly crafted media productions of the Cuomo Covid 19 briefings. (Something I’ve come to call the Cuomo-Virus TV reality show.) But let it be said that “national image” that is being crafted is nothing more than a well manufactured media façade and a deceptive mirage. While the national media may be trying to paint N.Y. Governor Andrew Cuomo as a saint, the reality is Andrew Cuomo is far more of a scoundrel then he is a saint! And perhaps he may even be worse than a scoundrel. He is incompetent at best, (despite the sycophantic media portrayal) and pathologically corrupt and wicked at worse.
The killing fields of Andrew Cuomo
Back in early February, before the Coronavirus crisis had really taken root into our collective conscience’s I did a commentary on the March 4 life NY radio broadcast called “New York’s Killing Fields” where I stated that the policies of Gov. Cuomo were turning NY into a killing field from the womb to the tomb. I stated in that broadcast that, “NY is quickly becoming an extremely dangerous place to live.... From the womb to the tomb the culture of death in NY is increasing at an alarming rate! Unrighteous and unjust laws are being enacted at a breakneck pace as godless lawmakers tighten their grip and stranglehold on the State Legislators in Albany. Everything from the so called “Reproductive Health Care Act” of 2019, to the newly enacted Justice reform bill of January 2020 is making NY a killing field. From little to virtually no restrictions on abortion, to the new “bail / justice reform” law that went into effect in Jan., which has already resulted in many tragic results and has been the direct cause of several deaths…Gov. Cuomo is turning NY into a killing field! Both Inside the womb and outside the womb life is becoming increasingly dangerous in NY because of the policies of Andrew Cuomo.” At the time I spoke those words there was no way I would have even imagined just how worse it would become! The Coronavirus crisis was just in its beginning stages at that time as far as we knew. The killing fields of New York were about to become much worse under the inexplicable policies of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The Cuomo-Virus Arrogance on Parade
Several weeks back when the curve began to flatten and it seemed as though NY was coming off its peak of Covid 19, the Governor of NY very arrogantly and very foolishly, boldly declared that it “wasn’t God who was lowering the deaths in NY”....it wasn’t “faith in God”...it was what “we” did! And make no mistake, by saying, “we” he meant “he”. God is not at work here according to Gov. Cuomo, “I am!” Yes indeed. You are correct in that assessment. But for all the wrong reasons. Yes, you and your policies are at work here Governor and that is precisely why New York has the highest death count in the US! Your mismanagement of the resources from way back before this crisis ever even hit, to the demonstrably tragic policies you put into place from the onset of this crisis should only add to your shame, instead of increasing your arrogance!
Now a major issue that has come to light the past few weeks is the fact that the New York State health department under the direction of Andrew Cuomo allowed many sick or recovering coronavirus patients back into the nursing homes. There is no way of spinning this. New York State under Andrew Cuomo did not protect the elderly in nursing homes and that is why there is such a high death rate there. One thing that everyone has known and has agreed upon from the very start of this pandemic is that the elderly and the aged were a particularly vulnerable and at-risk group. Yet, in spite of that indisputable fact, on March 25th Gov. Cuomo signed an executive order, mandating that nursing homes must accept corona infected patients, (see here) that coronavirus patients be injected into nursing homes! (See here). (The original link to the Executive order has since been removed from the NY State website.)
What was Gov. Cuomo thinking by sending COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes? What could possibly be the reasoning behind that? Incompetence? Hubris? Or both? When the reports first came out it was stated that the reason was that there was no where else to send them. Really?
However, as reported in the New York Post However, as reported in the New York Post, “New York health officials were warned in writing that a Brooklyn nursing home where 55 patients have died of coronavirus was overwhelmed — weeks before it began topping the state’s official list of resident COVID-19 deaths, damning emails show. Cobble Hill Health Center CEO Donny Tuchman sent a desperate email to state Health Department officials on April 9, asking if there was “a way for us to send our suspected Covid patients” to the hospital built inside the Javits Convention Center or the US Naval hospital ship Comfort — the under-utilized federal medical facilities on Manhattan’s West Side. “We don’t have the ability to cohort right now based on staffing and we really want to protect our other patients,” Tuchman wrote in a chain of the emails reviewed by The Post. He was denied.” (see here and here)
When confronted with the outcry from the Nursing home managers here was Cuomo’s response: “They don’t have a right to object. That is the rule and that is the regulation, and they have to comply with that,” Cuomo said in a news conference. (see here)
How does the national media with any kind of journalistic integrity not report on this? How is it that they can with any sort of a clear conscience give him a pass on this tragedy?
Facts, Stats, and Tragic Results
As of this writing (May 19th, 2020) the Covid 19 stats for New York state are 333,122 total cases. (But NOTE! Positive cases track only people with a positive COVID test result- because testing has been limited, the number of people who have actually been infected with COVID is much higher - about 10 times the positive cases, according to New York State's antibody screenings- on 5/2/20, they registered 20% of the sampled population was positive in NYC and 12% was positive in New York State. see here)
New York State deaths as of this writing are 21,272. Out of that 21,271 for the entire state 19,809 of them are in NYC.
Of those 21,271, as per Time Magazine May 5th "At least 4,813 residents with confirmed or presumed cases of COVID-19 have died at 351 of New York’s 613 nursing homes since March 1, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration’s new list. The list, released late Monday, includes the reported number of both confirmed and presumed deaths as of Sunday evening. Nursing home residents have made up roughly one-fourth to one-fifth of the state’s official tally of fatalities. But just how many nursing home residents have died of COVID-19 remains uncertain despite the state’s latest disclosure, as the list doesn’t include deaths of nursing home residents at hospitals or any details about the number of COVID-19 cases at individual nursing homes. " (see here)
As the new stats take shape it appears that at least 20-35% of the death toll in NY is in Nursing homes. All the while nursing home managers have been left bewildered as to why the empty facilities at the Javits’s Center and the Navy Ship Comfort (which has since left NY) were not made available for ill and suspect elderly coronavirus patients, who were not able to be aptly isolated from others deemed vulnerable to severe infection or death.
One of the more macabre incidents that has occurred in this tragedy was when coronavirus infected seniors were delivered to a Nursing home with body bags supplied! (see here). As reported by the NY Post: “The first coronavirus patients admitted to a Queens nursing home under a controversial state mandate arrived along with some grim accessories — a supply of body bags…An executive at the facility — which was previously free of the deadly disease — said the bags were in the shipment of personal protective equipment received the same day the home was forced to begin treating two people discharged from hospitals with COVID-19… Within days, three of the bags were filled with the first of 30 residents who would die there after Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Health Department handed down its March 25 directive that bars nursing homes from refusing to admit “medically stable” coronavirus patients, the exec said. Like clockwork, the nursing home has received five body bags a week — every week — from city officials. “Cuomo has blood on his hands. He really does. There’s no way to sugarcoat this,” the health care executive added.
A year and a half ago when NY was getting ready to pass the “Reproductive Health Act” I called on Gov. Cuomo in a video to "consider his way's" and repent of his godless arrogance. From the expansion of Abortion "rights" to outright infanticide last year, to the releasing of violent offenders from jail through his bail reform act, which has led to an increase in recidivistic crime and murders. NY under the policies of Gov. Andrew Cuomo has truly become a modern day "killing fields". This is the ongoing tragedy of a Gov. who recently declared "God had nothing to do" with his self-proclaimed "success" in battling this Coronavirus. His self-proclaimed "success" is increasingly being shown to be a mirage. NY has had over half the country’s cases and deaths from this virus. I do believe there are numerous reasons for that, no doubt, that transcend even the obvious mismanagement of the situation. However, when a leader of the people abandons or rejects the true God, they become a law unto themselves, they create their own rules, they create an arbitrary and capricious moral structure.
The Gospel demands that we speak out against injustice, not only in the hope of converting the sinner and the oppressor but also under the Christian obligation to speak truth to power. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has blood on his hands. From the womb to the tomb. From the abortion clinics where the vulnerable pre born innocent are mercilessly slaughtered, to the Nursing homes where the vulnerable and innocent elderly and aged were negligently exposed and left to die. Gov. Cuomo will ultimately have to answer to not just merely the voter's, but to a Just and Holy God who exacts a stricter judgement on those who would lead. In the meantime, New Yorkers need to vote this man out of office as soon as possible. And pray that the rest of the country does not get infected by a Cuomo-virus.
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