The way New York Governor Andrew Cuomo handled deaths in nursing homes in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic may be overshadowed by his growing list of sexual harassment accusers, say some Democrat critics.
The harassment scandal – which grew to at least five accusers after two reports published on Saturday night, amid denial of the charges by both the governor and his spokespersons – seemed to take on “all the pitfalls of a coordinated distraction” of nursing home deaths, said Boris Ryvkin, a lawyer and former national security adviser to Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
State officials now estimate that more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities in New York may have died of coronavirus – far more than the estimated 6,400 state officials previously reported, according to a story published in the Thursday night by Wall Street Newspaper.
The Cuomo government later claimed that some deaths were not included in its count because some of the information could not be “properly verified”, adding that the discrepancy did not affect the government’s claim that a state March 25 statement on patients in nursing homes of elderly people “was not a cause of death in nursing homes”, as some critics suspected.
“The decision was made to use the data set reported by the place of death with first-hand knowledge of the circumstances, which gave a greater degree of comfort in its accuracy,” explained Beth Garvey, special adviser to Cuomo.
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However, critics of Cuomo’s handling of the state’s nursing homes were unwilling to let the governor escape the situation.
Progressive columnist David Sirota of The Guardian said that waiting until “the harassment is investigated” would be to ignore what he called Cuomo’s “other big scandal”.
“Cuomo must face impeachment and calls to resign because 15,000 people died in nursing homes while he helped his donor protect nursing home executives from legal consequences and withholding victim data,” tweeted Sirota on Wednesday.
Some critics claimed that the nursing home scandal was not getting the proper level of attention compared to the sexual harassment scandal.
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“When I took my Cuomo Bingo Card, I didn’t see ‘Overthrown by a sex scandal’ outperforming ‘Killed thousands of elderly Americans in nursing homes,’ said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Col., Tweeted last week after of the three, the accusers accused Cuomo of unwanted advances.
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Conservative activist Brigitte Gabriel agreed that she should not have considered the allegations of harassment for Cuomo to be seen as unfit to govern.
“Democrats are going to kick Cuomo out of office for sexual harassment, not for the preventable death of 15,000 seniors,” she tweeted on Saturday.
Libertarian journalist Robby Soave agreed that Cuomo should resign because of the deaths at the nursing home, not on charges of harassment.
“Killing hundreds or thousands of people and then trying to cover them up is significantly worse than sexual harassment,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.