The governor who mandated coronavirus-positive patients be sent into nursing homes with little to no notice is now claiming the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is playing politics after the agency updated its recommendation on quarantining after travel.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) tweeted Wednesday that he disagreed with the CDC’s new guidelines, which were updated last Friday to remove its suggestion that those traveling overseas or out of state should quarantine for 14 days when they return. Cuomo, along with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont – also Democrats – have instituted a mandatory 14-day quarantine for people traveling to their states from 35 states and territories.
“The CDC reversed its guidance to say that people in close contact with a COVID-positive person don’t need to get tested. This is not science. It’s politics. Politics that are dangerous to public health. It’s indefensible,” Cuomo tweeted.
The CDC reversed its guidance to say that people in close contact with a COVID-positive person don’t need to get tested.
This is not science. It’s politics. Politics that are dangerous to public health.
It’s indefensible.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 26, 2020
As The Daily Wire previously reported, the CDC removed the recommendation while still emphasizing the dangers of catching and spreading COVID-19 while traveling:
Travel increases your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19. Staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.
You can get COVID-19 during your travels. You may feel well and not have any symptoms, but you can still spread COVID-19 to others. You and your travel companions (including children) may spread COVID-19 to other people including your family, friends, and community for 14 days after you were exposed to the virus.
Don’t travel if you are sick or if you have been around someone with COVID-19 in the past 14 days. Don’t travel with someone who is sick.
Democrats and their media counterparts initially mocked and criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for instituting a 14-day quarantine for travelers from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in March, when the coronavirus was wreaking havoc on those states. CNN at the time suggested the move could be a constitutional issue. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the time that he understood DeSantis’ order because New York was the epicenter but suggested it was not “the most enlightened approach.”
When Cuomo instituted his own 14-day quarantine for travelers from Florida, he accused DeSantis of playing politics with the virus.
“Look at the numbers: you played politics with this virus and you lost,” Cuomo said on CNN, at the time. “You told the people of your state…don’t worry about it, just open up, go about your business, this is all Democratic hyperbole. Oh really? Now you see twenty seven states with the numbers going up, you see the death projections going up….It was never politics, it was always science.”
Now Cuomo is accusing the CDC of playing politics.
It should be noted that Cuomo blamed CDC guidelines for his administration’s decision to place coronavirus-positive patients into vulnerable nursing homes.
“Anyone who wants to ask why the state did that with COVID patients in nursing homes, it’s because the state followed President Trump’s CDC’s guidance,” Cuomo said in May while defending the nursing home policy, which led to. “So they should ask President Trump.”
Cuomo declined an investigation into the nursing home policy, which killed a reported 6,600 patients, according to state statistics.
But those statistics are skewed, The Associated Press reported, because New York only counted patients who died from coronavirus in nursing homes and not those who had the virus and were transported to hospitals before dying.
“That statistic that could add thousands to the state’s official care home death toll of just over 6,600,” the AP continued. “But so far the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to divulge the number, leading to speculation the state is manipulating the figures to make it appear it is doing a better than other states and to make a tragic situation less dire.”