WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today marks the one year anniversary of Governor Andrew Cuomo's decision to force COVID-positive patients into long-term care facilities, causing the unnecessary death of thousands of nursing home residents. To make matters worse, Cuomo underreported the number of deaths, lying to New Yorkers to cover up the severity of his decision, neglecting the death of over 15,000 residents.
At the height of his mid-pandemic fandom, it appears Cuomo was an inspiration to many Democrat governors across the nation. The deadly decision to group sick patients in with one of the nation's most at-risk populations, seniors, or underreport data, seems to also be a problem for Governors Gretchen Whitmer (MI), Phil Murphy (NJ), Tom Wolf (PA), Gavin Newsom (CA) and Tony Evers (WI).
These Governors blindly followed Cuomo's poor direction, tried to cover it up and now owe it to their constituents to admit their mistakes:
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's (MI) policy is responsible for the death of 5,500 nursing home residents and counting. The abuse of her powers as Governor to withhold the details of the data proves her hypocrisy.
Gov. Phil Murphy (NJ) was warned that "patients will die" yet he persisted, admitting COVID-positive patients into nursing homes, causing the death of over 8,000 nursing home residents.
Gov. Tom Wolf (PA) leads the nation in having the largest percentage of COVID-related deaths in nursing homes, accounting for more than 50% of all the deaths in the state.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (CA) ordered the most extreme, arbitrary lockdown measures in the country and still managed to make the reckless decision to put California's seniors at risk with his nursing home policy. Newsom failed to accurately track the casualties in the nursing homes and is looking to place the blame on the industry.
Gov. Tony Evers (WI) can call it what he wants, but he too failed to accurately report the data. Evers' attempt to quietly reclassify over 1,000 deaths is evidence of the Governor's failed leadership.
“It’s safe to say that Andrew Cuomo is not the COVID nursing home policy pioneer his colleagues thought he was. His failure is their failure after each adopted the same measures and tactics,” said RGA Communications Director Jesse Hunt. “People died and constituents were lied to as a result of their actions and they will forever own this failure to lead in a time of crisis.”