Will New York Finally Hold Governor Andrew Cuomo Accountable for Those Needless Nursing Home Deaths?
Did any health care expert think that Cuomo's nursing home order did not effectively sentence thousands of New York nursing home residents to death?
On May 21, 2020, Yael Halon, in "Janice Dean slams Cuomo nursing home policy after losing in-laws to COVID-19: 'Not just numbers on a curve'" (www.foxnews.com/media/janice-dean-cuomo-nursing-home-policy-coronavirus) reported: "Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean told 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' Thursday that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's failed nursing home policy should be 'one of the biggest' stories of the year after both of her parents-in-law lost their lives to the coronavirus."
Dean was right, but it was not a big story of the year, because it did not suit the bulk of the media determined to demonize then President Donald Trump and to glorify Governor Cuomo and either undetermined or unaware of what President Reagan called "pesky facts."
In "Let's have the whole truth about the COVID-19 nursing home deaths," posted on June 27, 2020, I wrote: "America needs a fair and balanced investigation of what appears to be a huge nursing home scandal before the voting begins."
"New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on the New York nursing home deaths that resulted from his executive order requiring them to take persons who tested positive for the COVID-19 virus: 'There were no preventable deaths. Everyone who passed away, we did everything we could.'
"Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean: 'Twenty percent of our lost loved ones are from nursing homes ... because Governor Cuomo and several other governors forced COVID-recovering patients into nursing homes.'"
"The readily foreseeable, tragic and preventable deaths that resulted from Governor Cuomo's outrageous nursing home death trap policy have been denied, not admitted, by Governor Cuomo. He continues to insist that that he is blameless and President Trump is to blame for anything bad.
"President Trump did not impose Governor Cuomo's deadly executive order.
"The people need to know the truth about how unscientific and undata-driven the executive order that the man who claims that we must follow the science and the data issued and why it took so long for him to revoke it.
"The grieving Janice Dean is a meteorologist, not a health care expert, and understandably did not pretend to be one. As a result, Governor Cuomo is repeating his big lie months later and the truth as to how horrible Governor Cuomo's executive order was is not generally understood.
"That's great news for Governor Cuomo, but terrible for the truth and the nation, especially since Governor Cuomo appears to have led other Democrat Governors to follow his terrible example.
"It's past time for Fox News to follow up and prove that Janice Dean was right when she opined that so many loved ones were lost 'because Governor Cuomo and several other governors forced COVID-recovering patients into nursing homes.' That requires health care expertise.
"It's also past time for Fox News to investigate why the states with the highest nursing home death rates have Democrat Governors and to determine whether those Governors were simply incompetent or something even worse was afoot.
"Janice Dean and her parents-in-law deserve at least that much from Fox News and America needs a fair and balanced investigation of what appears to be a huge nursing home scandal before the voting begins."
Alas, that did not happen.
On July 16, 2020, in "Governor Cuomo's abhorrent nursing home order beggars belief," I wrote:
"Note to brave and bold Janice Dean: If you have a suitable platform, please demand that Governor Cuomo produce any science and data that supposedly supported his executive order and if he does not produce any, please say 'Have you no shame?'
"Governor Cuomo's abhorrent nursing home order has been rescinded, but the persons who died as a result are still dead and their loved ones are still grieving.
"... Governor Andrew Cuomo, who repeated ad nauseum that he follows science and data, ordered New York nursing homes to admit persons who had tested positive for COVID-19.
"To date, Governor Cuomo has not explained why he thought that it was safe to treat nursing homes as hospitals (assuming that he really thought that).
"I am not a health care expert, but I have spent more than enough time visiting nursing homes to realize that putting persons with a dangerous transmissible disease in one is a threat to the residents and the staff there. It beggars belief that Governor Cuomo was so ignorant as to believe his nursing home policy was safe. Especially in light of Governor Cuomo's expressed concern for his own now elderly mother and devotion to science and data.
"Unless Governor Cuomo is a secret member of the Flat Earth Society, his issuance of that finally rescinded order that caused so much grief to so many people (including Janice Dean and her family) beggars belief.
"With Donald Trump no longer President and facing a trial in the United States Senate that is unconstitutional on its face because he is no longer President after a snap impeachment long on partisanship and short on evidence, New York State's radical Attorney General, Letitia James, whose first political office was won in New York City on the Working Families ballot line, finally released a report to the effect that New York Covid-19 related nursing home deaths were understated by perhaps 50%, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo may be exposed as incompetent or worse.
Better late than never!
Cuomo is a lawyer and a skilled politician but not a health care expert. His advisers had recommended that he have New York State buy about 15,000 ventilators, but he decided not to buy any and eventually the pandemic reached New York State, putting Cuomo in a very bad position.
Did any health care expert think that Cuomo's nursing home order did not effectively sentence thousands of New York nursing home residents to death?
Don't expect Governor Cuomo to be prosecuted for criminally negligent homicide (he may have immunity as Governor) or to have his Emmy award revoked, but at least another Cuomo reelection will not be coming if he and his horrific nursing home order are properly has spoken eloquently about following "the science."
What "science" supposedly supported Cuomo's nursing home order?
Who recommended it to him and why?
Cuomo's mother was not in a nursing home where her son increased the risk of death by issuing his nursing home order, but many thousands of mothers and fathers were.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.