Monday, May 18, 2020

Gov. Cuomo Excuses Himself


By John Hinderaker | POWERLINE


New York has been by far the worst center of Wuhan virus infection in the U.S., and it seems clear that New York’s governor, Andy Cuomo, has done a terrible job. Among other things, he went out of his way to force New York’s nursing homes to accept residents who had tested positive for COVID-19, an absolutely irrational act that killed thousands, which he has since rescinded.

Nevertheless, even as his incompetence cost thousands of lives, Cuomo has adopted a pose of moral superiority, aided and abetted by the press: “If it saves just one life,” Cuomo notoriously said, damaging and, in many cases, destroying the lives of millions of New Yorkers was worth it.

But facts are inexorable, and Cuomo has now changed his tune. In a press conference today, he urged universal forgiveness:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday addressed the state’s early response to the coronavirus outbreak and said “nobody” should be prosecuted for the those who died, noting that “older people” were most vulnerable. The governor has been criticized for a decision in March, which has since been reversed, to send patients back to nursing homes after they tested positive for COVID-19.

More than 4,800 people died from COVID-19 in nursing homes in the state between March 1 and May 1, according to a tally released by the Cuomo administration on May 1. Cuomo has called nursing homes a “feeding frenzy” for the coronavirus.

“Despite whatever you do, because with all our progress as a society, we can’t keep everyone alive,” Cuomo said.

Huh. Interesting that Andy “If it saves one life” Cuomo should finally figure that out.

“How do we get justice for those families of those 139 deaths?” Cuomo said. “Who can we prosecute for those 139 deaths? Nobody. Mother Nature, God, where did this virus come from? People are going to die by this virus, that is the truth.”

Of course it is, but today’s fatalism is a far cry from Cuomo’s early claim that even though his shutdown might devastate the lives of millions, it would be worth it because not a single life would be sacrificed to the Wuhan flu.

When pressed further about how some people thought their loved ones would be safe because of Matilda’s Law, Cuomo continued to stress the point that older and more vulnerable people were “always going to die from this virus.” He said when talking [about] who is accountable for deaths, the most important thing was to make sure “you can have a situation where everyone did the right thing and everyone tried their best.”

Whether Cuomo “tried his best” is debatable; many would say that his policies intentionally imposed unacceptable risks on elderly people in nursing homes. A reader writes:

“If we can save one life”…

Does he have blood on his hands? When does he apologize to Trump?

So we killed grandma anyway. We never had a real risk of swamping the hospitals, had a “lockdown” that his brother proved was bogus, but just bad enough to destroy the economy…and still had 20,000 deaths, highest per capita in the world. Heckuva job!

Oh, and nice haircut, governor!

Hypocrisy, thy name is Democratic Party Governor.