How Democrat governors are doing starting with Gov. Cuomo

FPI / May 24, 2020

On Wednesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo attempted to blame President Donald Trump for the thousands of coronavirus deaths in the state's nursing homes.

“Anyone who wants to ask, ‘Why did the state do that with COVID patients in nursing homes,’ it’s because the state followed President Trump’s CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance,” Cuomo told reporters in Albany who asked the governor whether he had any regrets about his March 25 directive which mandated nursing homes had to accept coronavirus-infected patients.

“They should ask President Trump. I think that will stop the conversation,” Cuomo insisted.

State lawmakers have called for independent investigations into what role Cuomo's March 25 directive played in the nursing home death tolls.

Cuomo also attempted to claim that the more-than-5,500 deaths connected to nursing homes in New York was a better toll, per capita, than most other states.

But the state Department of Health admitted it does not count nursing-home residents who were infected in nursing homes and ended up dying in the hospital as a nursing homes death. Analysts say the real numbers are much higher.

"There is no remorse, just buck-passing," Miranda Devine wrote of Cuomo in a May 20 op-ed for the New York Post.

"It’s incredible how highly he rates himself when he has presided over the most COVID deaths of any state in the nation by far — 22,976 as of Wednesday, some seven times more than California, 11 times more than Florida. New York still hasn’t come to grips with why that is. The disparity is not a random act of God, as the governor would have us believe," Devine wrote.

Cuomo "was slower to respond to the threat of the virus. And then he compounded that error with the unforgivably callous act of forcing nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients — a death sentence for other residents as the infection spread like wildfire. And yet, not a trace of worry do we see on Cuomo’s tanned face."

Last week, Cuomo said: “Older people, vulnerable people are going to die from this virus. That is going to happen despite whatever you do.”

Devin noted that Cuomo, "made sure of it. We knew from the start of the pandemic that the frail elderly were most at risk. Florida, with its big retired population, moved early to protect nursing homes. A mistake is one thing, but Cuomo’s lack of remorse or self-doubt is chilling."

'Where does Gov. Ron DeSantis go for his apology?'

The major media, almost in unison, predicted that Florida would become a coronavirus disaster area because of the policies of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In an interview with National Review columnist Rich Lowry, DeSantis says he was surprised at “how knee-jerk” the hostile coverage was, but he “also knew that none of these people knew anything about Florida at all, so I didn’t care what they were saying.”

Lowry notes that "at the same time DeSantis was being made into a villain," Cuomo "was being elevated as a hero." The media did this "even though the DeSantis approach to nursing homes was obviously superior to that of Cuomo. Florida went out of its way to get COVID-19-positive people out of nursing homes, while New York went out of its way to get them in, a policy now widely acknowledged to have been a debacle."

DeSantis noted that “The day that the media had their first big freakout about Florida was March 15. There were people on Clearwater Beach, and it was this big deal. That same day is when we signed the executive order to, one, ban visitation in the nursing homes, and two, ban the reintroduction of a COVID-positive patient back into a nursing home.”

The media focused their concerns on The Villages, Florida's iconic senior community. According to DeSantis, as of last weekend there hadn’t been a single resident of The Villages in the hospital for COVID-19 for about a week. At one point, the infection rate in The Villages was so low that state officials were worried that they were missing something. “So I got the University of Florida to do a study,” the governor said. “They did 1,200 asymptomatic seniors at The Villages, and not one of them came back positive, which was really incredible.”

Michigan's Whitmer loses to 77-year-old barber

Karl Manke, a 77-year-old barber in Owosso, Michigan, has defeated Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel in court for the second time in about a week, a local report said.

The Argus-Press reported: Judge Matthew Stewart ruled that Karl Manke will not have to close his shop after the state again failed to prove he was an imminent danger to public health. Stewart said the state did not arrest Manke when he was cited, so he didn’t represent "an imminent health danger."

Nessel’s office said she would appeal the ruling.

"We want him to discontinue his conduct, which we think is aiding and abetting the spread of the virus,” Nessel claimed.

The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs suspended Manke’s license without a hearing.

“It’s an unbelievable abuse of power,” attorney David Kallman told radio host Steve Gruber, stating there is no legal basis for the action. “This is pure retribution by the governor’s office and by the AG. This is so petty and vindictive, it’s beyond the pale.”

Pennsylvania's Wolf: No return to normal until 'foolproof vaccine'

Pennsylvania will not fully reopen until there is a "foolproof vaccine" for coronavirus, Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf said on Wednesday.

When it comes to sporting events, shopping malls or students returning to school, Wolf said: “Ultimately I think what it’s going to take for everybody to feel safe going to a Penn State game or a basketball game is that they have some confidence that they’re not going to get sick by being in close contact with somebody else. I think that’s what it’s going to take to really get our economy back to normal, and I really think that can’t happen fully, 100 percent until we have a vaccine that is foolproof. That’s my own stance.”

Two other Democrat governors have said their state's won't be able to fully return to normal unless there is a vaccine.

“Until a proven vaccine is widely available, we cannot firmly enter the ‘new normal,’ when life will once again return to all our workplaces, downtowns, and main streets,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said on Monday.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press briefing earlier this month: “We’re not going back to normal. It’s a new normal with adaptations and modifications, until we get to immunity and a vaccine.”

Free Press International