Regardless of practically 5,400 nursing residence residents lifeless and calls rising for a probe of his insurance policies that mandated the services absorb coronavirus sufferers amid the pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted Wednesday that he and his officers “did the whole lot we may” to guard essentially the most weak inhabitants.
“As a society, you’ll be able to’t save everybody, you’re gonna lose individuals, that’s life,” mentioned Cuomo in a press briefing in soon-to-reopen Watertown, in upstate New York. “However we did the whole lot we may.”
Cuomo repeated that conscience-clearing mantra, or an in depth variation of it, six occasions in a matter of seconds when grilled particularly a few lack of diagnostic checks making it not possible for some nursing houses to conform together with his new edict that each one staff be screened twice weekly.
The governor mandated the stepped-up screening on Sunday, along with ruling that hospitals can not discharge sufferers to nursing houses until they take a look at detrimental for the contagion.
That change curbed — however didn’t solely undo — a widely-criticized March 25 directive from his state Division of Well being barring nursing houses from turning away coronavirus-positive individuals for admission or readmission.
Politicians from each side of the aisle have referred to as for probes into what position that coverage had within the 2,752 confirmed and a couple of,646 presumed coronavirus deaths logged in nursing houses by means of Tuesday, representing over 5 % of the state’s complete nursing residence inhabitants.
“We’ve to take a look at that loss of life quantity every single day,” mentioned Cuomo, referring to state fatalities general. “The one means you set your head on the pillow at evening is you say, ‘I did the whole lot I may.’
“I can look you within the eyes and say, ‘We did the whole lot that we may.’ ”
That “the whole lot we may” effort has included telling nursing houses “It’s not our job” to offer private protecting tools, clearing coronavirus-infected nurses to work at one upstate facility and an ongoing state lawyer common probe — not into Cuomo or the DOH, however into nursing houses.
All of the whereas, nursing houses statewide — a few of them coronavirus-free earlier than the March directive — have descended into hellish circumstances, with little authorities assist past physique baggage.
Cuomo’s declare of unpolluted palms raised eyebrows Wednesday.
“If you happen to make a mistake, admit it and don’t repeat it,” mentioned Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), among the many most vocal proponents of an investigation into the debacle.
“Did they do the whole lot they might?” requested Kim. “That’s a transparent no.”