Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is calling for the impeachment of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) following the governor's catastrophic nursing home policy that mixed COVID-19 patients with vulnerable nursing home residents.
"I think Governor Cuomo should be impeached ... for the disastrous decision he made to send patients with coronavirus back to nursing homes and virtually half his people who died were in the nursing homes," Paul said during an interview on Fox News's Rundown podcast.
Gov. Cuomo's policy of sending coronavirus patients into nursing homes is more perplexing given the availability of beds at the Javitz Center, where President Trump approved a temporary hospital to specifically house and treat coronavirus patients. The president also sent a floating hospital packed with emergency supplies to New York Harbor to make additional room.
But with a fawning press behind him, Gov. Cuomo decided in all his wisdom that elderly people, sick and contagious with the coronavirus, should be sent instead to nursing homes full of other elderly people. The policy went on for weeks, and the press was probably too busy looking for bad news about hydroxychloroquine to question the deadly directive.
Despite the media's efforts to paint Gov. Cuomo as a hero, Sen. Paul said there is a lot to learn from Gov. Cuomo in terms of what not to do.
"We've seen surges in coronaviruses in the midst of lockdown. New York had a lockdown and had 30,000 people die," Paul pointed out. "New York had the worst death rate of any place in the world amidst a lockdown. So perhaps a lockdown didn't do any good, and perhaps a lockdown killed our economy but didn't do anything to stem the tide of the virus. So I see nothing to be admired in New York's lockdown. I see ... a mountain of people who died particularly in the nursing homes. ... I think it killed the economy but didn't do any good for trying to contain the virus."
When it comes to lockdowns and mandating face masks, Sen. Paul believes each individual should assess their own risk when it comes to the Wuhan coronavirus.
"So really we need to put it in context," Paul argued. "Under the age of 45, this disease we're looking at is less dangerous than the seasonal flu. Above age 45, it's more dangerous than the seasonal flu. If you're in your 80s and you're in a nursing home, we need to do all kinds of things to try to protect you. But I don't think that involves shutting down the economy. I think that involves other precautions."
Paul said tens of thousands of people in the United States are typically undergoing chemotherapy, but the country doesn't require everyone to wear a face mask in order to protect these vulnerable people. Instead, those undergoing chemotherapy are instructed to avoid children with infectious diseases and others who could put them at risk.
In southern states, where a large number of new cases are being identified, the senator believes a certain level of immunity must be reached before the virus will abate. Rand believes this level of immunity is what ultimately brought down the virus in New York, despite the actions of Gov. Cuomo.