Does the mainstream media want credit for finally acknowledging that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo covered up the full extent of his deadly nursing home policy in the early months of the pandemic? It is quite amazing to see outlets like the New York Times, NBC News, ABC News, MSNBC and the rest finally calling out Cuomo after spending the entirety of 2020 fawning over his leadership and record during the pandemic, even as the numbers showed New York had the worst record of any state. They gushed over the governor, who often clashed with President Trump, blaming him for New York’s sorry record, even after Cuomo defended his nursing home policy by saying, “Older people, vulnerable people, are going to die from this virus. That is going to happen despite whatever you do. Because with all our progress as a society, we can’t keep everyone alive.”
Now that the media is suddenly okay with reporting on what really happened in New York under Cuomo’s “leadership,” how silly do they all look for praising him last year? Cuomo’s reputation during 2020 was so stellar that a national poll in April found that a majority of Democrats wanted Cuomo to replace Biden as their party’s nominee.
Cuomo also was awarded an Emmy for his “leadership” during the pandemic. And don’t get me started on Cuomo’s book on COVID.
All these accolades were foolishly bestowed upon Governor Cuomo, and the mainstream media deserves no credit for finally acknowledging this.
Cuomo was not the only governor in the United States who ordered nursing homes to accept patients regardless of their coronavirus status, but he was the only one who covered up the full extent of the policy’s deadly result. Cuomo knew that COVID spread through nursing homes “like fire through dry grass,” but still defended the policy and insisted that they had no right to object. He finally rescinded the order on May 11, but the damage had been done.
Nursing home patients represent a mere .46 percent of the United States population but account for at least 43 percent of all coronavirus deaths, and Cuomo enabled a massive outbreak in New York nursing homes, and then tried to cover it up.
Conservative media like PJ Media were reporting on this cover-up back in May 2020. While Cuomo was getting sky-high approval ratings and a book deal, and being floated as a replacement for Joe Biden, conservative media was reporting on what was really going on in New York State, and the mainstream media did their best to ignore it.
In July, I detailed exactly how Cuomo tried to cover up the true count of nursing home deaths in New York State. An analysis of four nursing homes found that actual COVID-19 deaths were between 2.5 times to nearly 11 times higher than New York’s official tally. In order to save his political capital, Governor Cuomo conducted a phony investigation that coincidentally vindicated the policy by relying on the bogus data, which actually claimed New York was the 46th-lowest out of 51 states (and D.C.) when ranked by the share of nursing home and long-term care facility COVID-19 deaths to the state’s total COVID-19 deaths. The report also used a bogus metric in order to make New York appear to rank more favorably compared to other states. My full analysis can be read here.
Governor Cuomo’s COVID-19 response was bad on several fronts. While the mainstream media perpetuated the narrative that Trump had botched the country’s response, it was actually Cuomo who botched his response. The question is: Will Dr. Fauci ever acknowledge he was wrong about New York?
While part of me is glad the media has decided it’s finally okay to point out Cuomo’s cover-up, conservative media has been talking about this for nine months.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter, Facebook, Parler, Gab, MeWe, Heroes, Rumble, and CloutHub.
