New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) tried to shame other states for not being better prepared in handling their COVID-19 cases after New York and New York City, were hit hard during the early days of the pandemic, saying those states learned "nothing" from them on how to combat the virus.
"Our numbers today were the lowest that we’ve seen since we started. The number of hospitalizations, the number of deaths. But nobody is safe until everybody is safe, right, and outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere, we've learned that," Cuomo told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Monday.
"From day one, the outbreak started in China, nobody paid attention, it went to Europe, it came to New York from Europe. That was our first lesson, that this virus is going to be transmitted. And we handled it in New York and the nation learned nothing from that experience, frankly, we saw the spike, we set up testing, we set hospitalization, et cetera, five months later in many parts of this country you’re just unprepared as you were on day one," he continued.
"And we know that if the virus is in California or Texas or Chicago and if it’s not addressed it’s a matter of time before it gets to New York and New Jersey and every other state and then you’ll see just see a ping-pong of this virus all across the country until you have a national strategy," Cuomo added. "You can’t — New York cannot solve this. Every state has to solve it, otherwise, we’ll just give it back and forth to each other like family members passing a bug among the family in one home, right, it’s the same metaphor for the nation."
To date, New York has the most deaths from COVID-19 cases in the United States. The state has 32,413 deaths from the coronavirus and 421,550 cases, according to the New York Times. Cuomo has been sharply criticized for his order that sent back COVID-19 cases to nursing homes, saying space was needed at hospitals for other cases.
During a hearing on the order, New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said Cuomo's order was not to blame for the resulting deaths in the long-term care facilities. It is estimated that over 6,000 people in nursing homes died from the coronavirus, though the exact number is thought to be higher.