State Well being Commissioner Mary Bassett says she desires to "look ahead" and that she will not "try to unravel what occurred within the nursing houses underneath the earlier commissioner."
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With the evident assist of Gov. Kathy Hochul, state Well being Commissioner Mary Bassett is refusing to get to the underside of Crew Cuomo’s nursing-home outrages. That is removed from the “transparency” Hochul promised, and the Legislature ought to pressure her to ship it.
The primary subject is then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s notorious govt order of March 25, 2020, which despatched hundreds of seniors with COVID into nursing houses and helped the pandemic rage by way of them. The second is the following coverup of the true COVID dying toll within the houses.
Bassett says she desires to “look ahead” and that she received’t “try to unravel what occurred within the nursing houses underneath the earlier commissioner.” Not determine why a medically outrageous order went out, or why her division was actively complicit in hiding the lethal end result?
Hearken to these weasel phrases: “what occurred within the nursing houses.” Bassett couldn’t even carry herself to say it. “What occurred” was that some 15,000 older folks died whereas Cuomo was enjoying hero on TV and getting his flunkies to fudge the numbers that confirmed in any other case.
Sure, the state must “unravel” this. It cracked down on each side of life — colleges, companies, eating places, gyms — within the title of public well being. Besides within the case of the group most susceptible to COVID, the aged.
There, Cuomo & Co. merely appeased the politically potent hospital foyer on the expense of public well being.
Bassett’s need to “look ahead” with out “making an attempt to unravel” “what occurred” is a slap within the faces of all who misplaced family members, in addition to these seniors fortunate sufficient to outlive regardless of being needlessly sickened.
The best way to “look ahead” is exactly what Republican state Sens. Sue Serino and Jim Tedisco demand of their invoice requiring a Well being Division investigation into New York’s pandemic insurance policies — with solutions on future plans for nursing houses in 90 days.
Absolutely and independently examine Cuomo, his well being commissioner Howard Zucker, and the admin factotums who ran the cover-up. After which suggest adjustments to make sure nothing like this by no means occurs once more.
As a result of whereas unhealthy actors are important in horrors like this, the techniques that assist and abet them want fixing — or wholesale reconstruction — too.
Nursing house deaths make up round 23% of the Empire State’s whole COVID toll. Safeguards must be put in place to maintain New York’s well being coverage as freed from energy politics as doable.
The Legislature’s leaders will certainly attempt to quash the Serino-Tedisco invoice. It’ll want assist from Democrats who really care about New York’s grieving households to forestall that.
If the state’s leaders handle to maintain this swept underneath the rug, they’ll be equipment after the actual fact.
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