On Wednesday, while the dominant liberal media continued to ignore the brewing scandal around New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's deadly decision to force nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients, Fox News reported two new developments.
Not only was it revealed that Cuomo's office has apparently tried to cover up his disastrous March 25 executive order by removing it from the state government's website, but the governor also signed a law last month forbidding lawsuits against nursing homes over COVID-19, which would effectively shield them even in cases when they actually were negligent.
This move may be explained by the fact that the nursing home industry made substantial contributions to his 2018 campaign, as recently reported by The Guardian.
On The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham highlighted the developments:
LAURA INGRAHAM: And last month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was widely condemned for giving nursing homes immunity for COVID-related lawsuits. Now, it is finally clear why he made that sleazy move. The Guardian reporting that Cuomo gave immunity to nursing home execs after big campaign donations -- $2.3 million to be exact.
She then recalled that Governor Cuomo has been trying to blame nursing homes for accepting COVID patients, even though his March 25 executive order required them to do so, and played a clip of him from one of his press briefings:
GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO: The obligation is on the nursing home to say, "I can't take a COVID positive person. I'm too crowded, I'm too busy, I don't have enough PPE," whatever the answer is -- doesn't even matter. If they say, "I can't take the person," then they can't take the person.
After suggesting that the nursing homes might have been cited by the state government if they had tried to reject COVID patients, Ingraham fact-checked the New York Democrat: "Well, they were following his polices. Not only did you order the nursing homes to take the COVID positive patients back, you also prohibited them from even testing incoming residents to see who was actually sick."
She then informed viewers that the March 25 executive order had mysteriously disappeared from the website for Governor Cuomo's office: "But you won't find that order on the state's health department website anymore. Poof, it's gone Cuomo had the text of the original nursing home mandate wiped from the site."
FoxNews.com reported Wednesday morning that, even though parts of the March 25 executive order are supposed to still be in effect, the order no longer appears on the state's website, although it can still be viewed through the Wayback Machine. It reads in part:
No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH (nursing home) solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.
As previously documented by NewsBusters, the Cuomo administration conflated CDC guidelines regarding COVID patients with guidelines for non-COVID patients, and falsely tried to claim that it was the CDC guidelines that required COVID patients be admitted to nursing homes when they, in fact, did no such thing.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Wednesday, May 27, The Ingraham Angle on Fox News Channel:
The Ingraham Angle
5/27/2020
LAURA INGRAHAM: And last month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was widely condemned for giving nursing homes immunity for COVID-related lawsuits. Now, it is finally clear why he made that sleazy move. The Guardian reporting that Cuomo gave immunity to nursing home execs after big campaign donations -- $2.3 million to be exact.
Now, despite this largesse, Cuomo is actually blaming the nursing homes for the thousands of deaths among seniors.
GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO: The obligation is on the nursing home to say, "I can't take a COVID positive person. I'm too crowded, I'm too busy, I don't have enough PPE," whatever the answer is -- it doesn't even matter. If they say, "I can't take the person," then they can't take the person.
INGRAHAM: Oh, they wouldn't have been slapped with a fine or a citation, I'm sure, Governor Cuomo. Well, they were following his polices. Not only did you order the nursing homes to take the COVID positive patients back, you also prohibited them from even testing incoming residents to see who was actually sick.
But you won't find that order on the state's health department website anymore. Poof, it's gone Cuomo had the text of the original nursing home mandate wiped from the site.
Joining me now, John Eastman, Claremont Institute senior fellow and constitutional scholar. John, you say that nursing homes should have immunity because they were following state mandates, so who should New Yorkers hold accountable and how can they do that?
JOHN EASTMAN, CLAREMONT INSTITUTE: So two things. I do think they should have immunity when they took someone who was COVID positive because of Governor Cuomo's order. Here's what it says: "No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the nursing home solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID." That means it was illegal under this order for them to deny somebody who was COVID positive. There's nothing in here about them being able to opt out of that if they don't think they're ready. That was a CDC guideline, but it's not in Governor Cuomo's order. So they were compelled to take these folks.
But then the immunity statute that he signed gives them much broader immunity than that. It's anything that's touching on or related or might be somehow connected to COVID. So if they have one person down the hall and that requires a shifting of staff resources and they're negligent and kill someone else in the main wing, they're immune, and I don't think they ought to have immunity for that at all, and broad immunity for any negligence whatsoever.
