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Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign to lead the Big Apple has reopened old wounds from the COVID-19 pandemic, leading him to explain key aspects behind his handling of the virus at the height of the crisis.
“New York City had COVID first and worst, so we were literally the laboratory for the country, if not the world on what was going to happen with COVID, and nobody knew,” he told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.
The former Democratic leader, now vying for the city’s top position with an independent bid, said that COVID was uncharted terrain at the time, and that decisions — particularly regarding the meager use of the USNS Comfort hospital ship sent into New York Harbor at President Trump’s request — were made under immense uncertainty.
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“The experts believed it [the virus] was going to continue to increase and mutate, and we would overwhelm the hospitals, so President Trump sent a hospital ship, the Comfort, to New York…” he explained.
“When the ship arrived, initially they were not prepared to take COVID people. We worked through that and then, ironically, the crew of the ship got COVID, and that took a period of time.”
“By the time the ship was operational, the curve had turned. The hospitals were not under the same stress, and we had opened up and were set up with an emergency facility of 1,200 beds at the Javits Convention Center. We turned that into a very large emergency shelter for overflow of hospitals, so we never needed the ship. In fact, we never even filled Javits,” he added.
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Cuomo did not directly address Bartiromo’s mention of a select subcommittee on coronavirus investigating his administration’s pandemic response, particularly the handling of nursing home policies.
His bid for a political comeback has been met with criticism over the issue, including from incumbent Mayor Eric Adams — a former Democrat also running as an Independent, but who trails Cuomo and Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani in the polls.
In response to Cuomo’s bid earlier this year, Adams told reporters that the former governor should “answer” for his role in the nursing home deaths, according to The New York Post.
“I’ve met with some of the nursing home family members and advocates. There’s some things that we want to do with them. But he has to answer that question on the trail,” Adams said.
“Should that be an automatic disqualification? No, I think it needs to be answered on the trail, exactly what happened. And I think some of those family members are going to be looking forward to that.”
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