A congressional panel investigating COVID-19 met with kinfolk of New York nursing dwelling residents who died throughout the shutdown – because the panel readies to grill ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the pandemic.
Members of the Republican-led Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic acquired an in depth 121-page timeline from Peter Arbeeny, whose father, Norman, died from the an infection after being launched from a Brooklyn nursing dwelling.
The scathing document on the wecarewall.com web site claims Cuomo and his administration’s selections and alleged coverups contributed to COVID-related deaths in nursing houses.
It’s the primary time Cuomo is being formally interviewed by congressional probers – although in a transcribed interview behind closed doorways.
“Maintaining monitor of Governor Cuomo’s multitude of lies, manipulations, and misdeeds could be overwhelming,” Arbeeny, who met not too long ago with Home investigators, says within the doc.
The preface to the timeline referred to as “the now notorious [Cuomo] $5.2 million e-book deal was the black cloud hovering over the New York Nursing Dwelling Scandal and the driving power of corruption, greed, and betrayal on the highest stage of State authorities.”
The COVID-19 panel, whose members embrace Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn), has interviewed different households of COVID victims and state ethics officers concerned within the controversy.
The panel interviewed Dr. Anthony Fauci, the previous Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Illnesses (NIAID) director, final week.
“For practically 4 years, Governor Cuomo has stonewalled our Committee as we search to stop the following pandemic, enhance authorities’s preparedness and response plans and collect solutions for households who misplaced aged family members due to his order forcing nursing houses to optimistic settle for optimistic sufferers even when they might not look after them,” Malliotakis mentioned.
“We sit up for lastly getting solutions, transparency and accountability for New Yorkers.”
Questions that may undoubtedly be requested in keeping with Malliotakis and Arbeeny and different sources consulted by the panel:
- The notorious March 25, 2020 edict directing nursing homes to accept optimistic COVID-19 sufferers discharged from hospitals. Whose thought was it, who created it and why did it stay in place for six weeks when it was clear the virus unfold via nursing houses?
- Why have been emergency hospitals such because the Javits Heart and USS Consolation, which had 1000’s of emergency beds, under-utilized?
- Why did Cuomo determine to write down a $5 million profit-making e-book about his response to COVID-19 in the course of the pandemic whereas 1000’s of New Yorkers have been dying?
- Did the choice to write down a e-book affect the governor’s selections to make him look higher?
- Why did you considerably undercount or mislead the general public about nursing home residents who died from COVID-19?
Invoice Hammond, senior fellow for well being coverage on the Empire Heart for Public Coverage who issued crucial experiences on the Cuomo administration’s actions, additionally was consulted by the panel, as have been state ethics officers tasked with reviewing the controversial e-book deal.
Cuomo – who resigned as governor amid quite a few sexual harassment and misconduct accusations he denies – is trying ahead to defending his administration of the once-in-century pandemic.
“The Division of Justice has checked out this problem thrice, as have the Manhattan District Lawyer, the [state] Lawyer Basic and the New York State Meeting, all figuring out that the precise information and proof didn’t help any declare of wrongdoing, and no MAGA farce of a congressional listening to goes to alter that,” Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi mentioned.
The Cuomo spokesman additionally mentioned the administration’s March 25 directive telling nursing houses to confess or readmit COVID optimistic sufferers from hospitals didn’t trigger Arbreeny’s father’s demise.
“We perceive Mr. Arbeeny’s ache – it’s horrible to lose a liked one below any circumstances – however as court docket and publicly accessible DOH paperwork show, the DOH’s March 25 steerage performed no position in his father’s loss: he was admitted to Cobble Hill Well being Heart on March 20, 2020, launched on April 8 and handed away tragically April 21– critically, Cobble Hill Well being Heart didn’t admit a single covid optimistic affected person into their facility till three weeks after Mr. Arbeeny was discharged,” Azzopardi mentioned.
The March 25 memo to nursing houses on admitting optimistic COVID-19 sufferers discharged from hospitals was primarily based on steerage from federal well being officers, the Cuomo rep mentioned.
He mentioned in Might 2020, New York turned one in all solely eight states to incorporate presumed nursing dwelling deaths from COVID to the every day tally, dramatically growing New York’s nursing dwelling demise numbers.
Azzopardi mentioned that truth “flies within the face of MAGA conspiracy theories that there was an try and undercount nursing dwelling deaths.”
He additionally maintained the federal authorities’s personal pointers prohibited COVID sufferers from being handled on the USS Consolation ship.
“By the point they reversed themselves, New Yorkers had flattened the curve and fears of a hospital collapse have been not at problem,” Azzopardi mentioned.
