The Republican presidential race is getting intense now that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has entered the race.
Since he announced his candidacy, Donald trump has stepped up his attacks on his rival. Trump’s latest claim about DeSantis is that he handled COVID worse than radical pro-abortion Governor Andrew Cuomo.
In a video his campaign released today, Trump said DeSantis is “better than most Democrat governors, but very average at best compared to Republican governors…Even Cuomo did better [on COVID].”
But that doesn’t even pass the straight face test.
Three years after Cuomo issued a disastrous order requiring nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients, placing them with those most likely to die from the virus, the Democrat leader still has not been held accountable.
Cuomo, who resigned due to sexual abuse allegations in 2021, issued a COVID-19 mandate on March 25, 2020 that required nursing homes to receive COVID-positive patients, meaning people with the virus were placed together with those most likely to die from it.
Not only did that result in thousands of seniors dying, Cuomo then tried to cover it up.
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Eventually, evidence began to surface that state health officials under the Cuomo administration failed to report all of the nursing home deaths to the public. In early 2022, an audit by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found the Cuomo administration failed to report 4,000 nursing home deaths due to COVID-19, likely in an attempt to keep up the positive publicity about the governor’s handling of the pandemic.
Many others, including the families who lost loved ones, also have demanded accountability from Cuomo and his former administration, including Janice Dean, a Fox News meteorologist whose in-laws both died in New York during that time.
“Elder care homes were turned into death traps,” Dean said in 2020 when questions began surfacing about Cuomo’s actions.
Cuomo first began facing criticism in early 2020 after he issued the executive order requiring nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients. Later, he rescinded the order. Since then, the mandate has been linked to more than 15,000 deaths in nursing homes during the pandemic.
On the other hand, DeSantis worked to protect senior citizens, the most vulnerable population.
DeSantis did not issue that kind of mandate.
DeSantis prohibited visitations to assisted living facilities and nursing homes. In addition, Gov. DeSantis prohibited nursing homes and long-term care facilities to [allow] COVID-19 patients who were discharged from hospitals to be returned to their facilities. He established COVID-19 dedicated nursing homes. In addition, he required comprehensive screening of staff and vendors entering these long-term care facilities. Testing and contact tracing was a priority for all Florida residents in addition to providing precious PPE [personal protective equipment]. Impeding those who were fleeing from other states where there was community spread of this virus was also important.
Norbert Michel, director of the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal that Cuomo really is to blame.
“The nursing home policy [in New York] was insane. The state was basically sending someone to an early grave. … If it is the case that the infection was already widespread before anyone knew about it, the state was still literally sending people back into it,” he said.
Conservative writer Guy Benson also confirms DeSantis did better than Cuomo on COVID.
Claiming that Florida’s Ron DeSantis handled COVID worse than New York’s Andrew Cuomo because the former state experienced more raw deaths is an insult to the intelligence of anyone he’s trying to convince. Florida had the third-most COVID deaths because it has the third highest population in the country. New York had fewer COVID deaths because it has almost two million fewer residents. According to these statistics, Florida outperformed New York (and many other states) on per capita deaths, which is impressive, given its disproportionately older population. Florida also outperformed New York (and many other states) on the key metric of so-called ‘excess deaths.’ And yet, the former president, eager to blast his top 2024 rival with ‘kitchen sink’ attacks — regardless of truth — just repeated the following.
