New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been the “worst government blunder in modern history.”
The Democratic governor made the declaration during a press conference this week announcing his support for a national “reset” recommended by Johns Hopkins experts, which would include renewed stay-at-home orders in hot spots across the country and a federal mask mandate.
Mr. Cuomo said he supported a “reset” but that Mr. Trump must first admit he “made a mistake” by downplaying the virus and refusing to wear a face mask in the early stages of the pandemic, and for encouraging states to reopen their economies prematurely.
“An outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere,” the governor told reporters Monday. “If we don’t tell the truth on the reset, COVID will never end, and it will ricochet across the country. It will just bounce back and forth. You see how it’s bouncing now, it’s ricocheting? It’s Florida, it’s Texas, it’s the Midwest, it’s California, oh it’s back to New Jersey is on the rise, oh it’s back to Massachusetts is on the rise.
“It will continue this ricocheting across the country, because that’s what viruses do,” he continued. “It will never end. This was a colossal blunder, how COVID was handled by this federal government — colossal blunder. Shame on all of you.
“If the American people are continued to be lied to the confusion, the chaos, and the denial will continue,” he said. “Every American knows this was the worst government blunder in modern history. Not since the Vietnam War have Americans sat in their living room to see the numbers on the TV screen every night saying what a mistake it was.”
New York has remained the hardest-hit state by the coronavirus in terms of death rate, second only to New Jersey. Mr. Cuomo announced this week that his state was finally seeing some of its lowest infection and hospitalization numbers to date but worried that could soon change if other states didn’t get the virus under control.
The governor has faced widespread criticism for a now-scrapped policy that barred nursing homes from refusing to take in coronavirus-positive patients. The state Department of Health reported last month that nearly 6,600 residents who had or likely had COVID-19 died at New York nursing homes and adult-care facilities. The state hasn’t disclosed how many nursing home residents died at hospitals, or how many residents have been infected with COVID-19, The Associated Press reported.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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