The latest heartbreak of the nearly year-long pandemic surprisingly isn’t the record highs in numbers; it’s actually the opposite. Thanks to Melissa DeRosa, the public just has learned that the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has been holding onto a huge secret since August of 2020. The Cuomo administration hid nursing home data so that the federal government wouldn’t find out. DeRosa is secretary to the governor himself and privately apologized to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state’s nursing home COVID-19 death toll. 2020 may have been the year of change like never before, but 2021 is the year of scandals.
Why they covered up death tolls in the first place
Imagine this. It is August of 2020. The American people are dying at an alarming rate. The economy is on the brink of collapsing. Meanwhile, there is a game of power being played due to the upcoming presidential election. Cue Cuomo.
Over the entirety of the four years that Donald Trump was president, he said more than a few outlandish things via Twitter. Back in August, one of those things may not have been as crazy as we thought. Trump took to Twitter to say that Cuomo and his administration were killing the people in nursing homes. Attacks on various Democratic governors followed: New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and even Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. After the blatant verbal attacks, Trump directed the Department of Justice to investigate them. DeRosa said this is when “basically, we froze.”
What does this mean moving forward?
The grieving family members of more than 13,000 dead seniors are angry, to say the least, which is completely valid. No apology could ever make up for the fact that they were carelessly killed due to a pride war. In a pandemic, the people need to be able to trust elected officials. When all of this started, we were scared. We didn’t know how this happened or why it happened; we just knew that it was on our shores and killing our people. Regardless of your political opinions, government cover-ups are something that should make us all livid. These people work for us. Yet, they are the ones who are treating us like we are disposable. Cuomo and his administration should be held responsible and face the consequences for what they have done.
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