This is why the so-called fact-checkers cannot be trusted. You’ve all known this for a while, I know. They’re operatives of the Democratic Party, but this is beyond hackery. It’s plain science fiction. Everyone knows New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo killed hordes of elderly people in New York with his nursing home order. Placing people infected with a contagious virus that is most likely to kill old people into facilities where such vulnerable folks live will cause people to die. That is a fact. That’s the science. That’s how this carnage began last year.
If nursing homes being forced to accept COVID-positive patients isn’t a problem, then why did the governor’s office attempt to deep-six the order on the state’s health website? The allegations were always present, but things truly fell apart when the New York Attorney General’s Office reported that the real COVID death toll in nursing homes was undercounted by 50 percent. Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRose, admitted the administration hid the data out of a supposed fear of a Department of Justice probe. Her apology was more centered on the political inconvenience it might have caused state Democrats, not to the thousands of New York families who lost loved ones because of this fiasco of a policy.
Man, Cuomo should take that up to with...Governor Cuomo of New York pic.twitter.com/696Ekq5FRm
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 20, 2021
The governor has apologized that he looked incompetent, a stunning remark that comes after he said…incompetence caused unnecessary COVID deaths. Now, he’s dying on the hill of, "My order didn’t cause mass death in nursing homes; it was visitors who brought it into these facilities." Fact-check: visitors were not allowed.
The administration admitted to a cover-up. They undercounted the true death toll. This was all centered around this order, and what does PolitiFact, a top fact-checker within this sordid side of political writing, say? That it's "mostly false" to say the order caused death and destruction in New York’s nursing homes (via Fox News):
Left-leaning PolitiFact defended a fact-check that deflected blame on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D., for his role in an alleged cover-up of thousands of nursing home deaths in the state.
In August, PolitiFact assigned a fact-check rating of ‘Mostly False’ to claims from former Trump official Michael Caputo stating that the governor "planted the seeds of infection that killed thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers."
Despite an admission that Cuomo "faced increasing scrutiny regarding his handling of information related to covid-related deaths among nursing home residents," in the form of a bombshell admission from one of Cuomo’s top aides that he tried to cover up underreported deaths from the policy, the original fact-check ruling remains with a new comment.
Oh, it gets worse:
Angie Drobnic Holan, EIC of PolitiFact, on Gov. Cuomo's COVID nursing home scandal: "I think the situation in NY is really complicated...We don't see hard evidence that [his order] made a significant difference in COVID deaths," adds the "issue" was employees bringing in COVID. pic.twitter.com/iwUn7CWIqX
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) February 21, 2021
There is no hard evidence to show this order made a significant difference in COVID deaths? They admitted it. Cuomo all but admitted previously that nursing homes had become graveyards. If there was no difference and Cuomo was not to blame, why is he possibly facing censure and impeachment by state Democrats? It’s a scandal. Period. And it could be one where criminal charges could be lobbed against Gov. Cuomo. John B. Daukas, who served as principal deputy and acting U.S. assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, 2020-21, has more (via WSJ):
The Cuomo administration’s alleged misreporting of nursing-home deaths in New York is serious, perhaps meriting federal criminal charges.
On March 25, 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order requiring New York nursing homes to admit hospitalized patients who had tested positive for Covid-19. The order also prohibited nursing homes from requiring hospitalized residents deemed “medically stable” to be tested before admission or readmission. By the end of the summer New York had more than 32,000 Covid deaths, the highest in the nation and more than double any other state. If New York were its own country, it would have ranked among the top 10 for Covid deaths.
[…]
What caught the Justice Department’s eye was Gov. Cuomo’s claim that New York’s nursing-home deaths were lower than many other states’ and that his March 25 order didn’t contribute to the extremely high number of New Yorkers who died from Covid. Given the virus’s disproportionate effect on the elderly, sick and frail, this seemed unlikely.
[…]
In September, New York produced data showing it had underreported Covid deaths in government-run nursing homes by a third. The undercounting appeared to be due to several factors. First, when a nursing-home resident who contracted Covid died after being transported to a hospital for treatment, New York didn’t count it as a “nursing-home death.” Second, New York didn’t include deaths occurring before the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began requiring Covid reporting from nursing homes in mid-May. CMS made reporting prior Covid deaths optional, and New York apparently elected to keep the information to itself.
But New York officials knew the data they reported to CMS only went back to mid-May. The Cuomo administration misled the public when it relied on that data to claim in late September that the state’s total nursing-home deaths were low.
[…]
Mr. Cuomo’s March 25 order led to many more tragic and unnecessary deaths than were reported to the public, and his administration appears to have engaged in a coverup designed to frustrate the federal government’s oversight efforts…Ms. DeRosa’s reported admissions indicate the Cuomo administration’s conduct wasn’t merely negligent, but intentional and perhaps criminal. Numerous federal criminal statutes could apply. It’s a crime to make false statements to the federal government. It’s also a crime to conceal information and otherwise obstruct government investigations. New York may have engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and its agencies and possibly obstruct justice, among other crimes.
RATING: What more evidence do you need to prove this order was devastating? There are thousands of exhibits. They’re the victims of this policy, the dead — and they have their families to speak for them at this point. The governor doubling down, despite the overwhelming evidence of his negligence and incompetence, only further confirms that he knows he’s in serious trouble for the cover-up of COVID deaths. The order is there in black and white. To say Cuomo isn’t to blame for increasing the COVID death toll in New York and nursing homes with this order is beyond tinfoil-hat material. This is defending the indefensible. And if the governor truly is not to blame, then why is he reportedly threatening state lawmakers? Even Alec Baldwin said if Cuomo did this, he should go.
If Cuomo threatened Ron Kim’s career, Cuomo should resign.
— AlecBaldwin(HABF) (@AlecBaldwin) February 18, 2021
When you force nursing homes, which house folks who are most susceptible to dying from the virus, to accept COVID-positive patients, death will follow. That’s science.
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