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Rand Paul Harshly Slams Fauci: You Praised Andrew Cuomo. Why Not DeSantis?

   DailyWire.com
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks to the media after the weekly policy luncheons on Capitol Hill July 21, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

On Monday morning, Kentucky GOP Senator Rand Paul, angered by Dr. Anthony Fauci having lavished praise on New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo for his response to the coronavirus pandemic while studiously ignoring Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis’ much more successful response, fired off a tweet targeting Fauci. Paul tweeted, “FL and NY have an identical number of per capita coronavirus infections but FL has 5X less per capita deaths. Will Dr. Fauci be praising @GovRonDeSantis’ response to the pandemic? Will he point out that @NYGovCuomo’s response allowed a fivefold greater per capita death rate?”

In mid-July, Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was queried about the COVID-19 pandemic on PBS’ NewsHour. Anchor Judy Woodruff asked Fauci about a solution for increasing testing throughout the country. Fauci replied:

Again, we have a problem. We need to admit it and own it. But we have got to do the things that are very clear that we need to do to turn this around, remembering we can do it. We know that, when you do it properly, you bring down those cases. We have done it. We have done it in New York. New York got hit worse than any place in the world. And they did it correctly by doing the things that you’re talking about.

As of August 3, according to The New York Times, New York had reported 421,008 cases of coronavirus with 32,401 deaths; Florida had reported at least 487,100 cases with 7,083 deaths. That amounts to 7.7% of the cases reported in New York eventuating in death, while in Florida roughly 1.5% of the cases resulted in death.

As Fox News noted, over 6,200 elderly residents may have died from COVID-19 in New York nursing homes according to state health department statistics. On March 25, the New York Department of Health issued an advisory that stated nursing homes had to accept residents returning from hospitals whether or not they had a diagnosis of COVID-19. The advisory stated:

During this global health emergency, all NHs must comply with the expedited receipt of residents returning from hospitals to NHs. Residents are deemed appropriate for return to a NH upon a determination by the hospital physician or designee that the resident is medically stable for return.  Hospital discharge planners must confirm to the NH, by telephone, that the resident is medically stable for discharge. Comprehensive discharge instructions must be provided by the hospital prior to the transport of a resident to the NH.

No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.

The Daily Wire reported on May 10 that a report from New York state authorities showed that “at least 4,813 residents with confirmed or presumed cases of COVID-19 have died at 351 of New York’s 613 nursing homes since March 1, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration’s new list,” according to Time Magazine.

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