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Cuomo Says His Lack of Information Caused Regretful Misinformation

Cuomo Says His Lack of Information Caused Regretful Misinformation

By Yehudit Garmaise

   Gov. Andrew Cuomo explained at his press briefing today that his administration could not fulfill the New York Legislature’s requests for information on the nursing home death toll because his staff had already received a request for the same information from the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ): a request to which the governor gave precedence.

    “Both houses of the legislature were told that we were giving the DOJ request for information precedence,” said Gov. Cuomo, although the New York Legislature has complained that its requests for information were not fulfilled without explanation. “The request of the federal government took precedence over state legislature’s requests. They can’t say they didn’t know.”

    Gov. Cuomo explained that his staff “was working 24 hours a day” and “did not have the capacity to fulfill both requests [of the Legislature and the DOJ] at the same time."

   One of the governor’s aides pointed out that his staff had “provided voluminous verification for 26 nursing homes, all of which had to be verified,” a process that involved a lot of staff resources, energy, and attention.

      “Everything takes time,” said the governor, who reminded reported that his staff was also managing the pandemic. ”We said [to the legislature that] we would get to their request. Our number one priority is saving people’s lives every day.”

   Although many residents of New York who lost loved ones in nursing homes have wondered whether those deaths could have been avoided at the times they occurred, Gov, Cuomo insisted that everyone involved did the absolute best they could.

   “Everything that could have been done was done,” Gov. Cuomo said. “You can’t say, ‘Maybe something else could have been done,” which is a cruel torture, to those who have lost loved ones, but it is not true here.”

    What the governor did say that he regretted was “creating a void in information.”

   “We created a void, we didn’t answer every question, and that void created misinformation,” said Gov. Cuomo, who regretted that that void of information “created confusion, cynicism, and pain for those who lost loved ones.”

“The truth is, older people, vulnerable people get this disease, and it is likely to kill them,” Gov. Cuomo said. “People in nursing homes have underlying conditions. That is why people died: not because people did anything wrong.”

 (Darren McGee- Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)


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