Queens lawmaker Eric Ulrich is demanding the City Council investigate Gov. Cuomo’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis in nursing homes, where thousands of residents have perished.
Specifically, the Republican councilman wants to probe Cuomo’s controversial executive order mandating that nursing homes and other longterm care facilities admit seniors still positive for coronavirus after being discharged from hospitals.
Ulrich said the decision was deadly to the “most vulnerable among us.”
“As a body, we should immediately commence an investigation into the Governor’s handling of the nursing homes throughout this crisis,” the legislator wrote Friday in a letter to Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Councilman Ritchie Torres, who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Investigation.
“If he tries to impede that investigation in any way, the City Council should utilize our subpoena power to compel testimony,” Ulrich continued.
“Thus far, the Governor has avoided answering tough questions about his decision. His recent appearance on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time was equally disgraceful,” Ulrich blasted, mocking the frequently silly and un-substantive interviews Cuomo regularly gives on the CNN primetime show hosted by his brother, serial non-social distancer, Chris Cuomo.
The call for a probe follows New York’s GOP Congress members demanding an inquiry by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma.
Though his initial response to the pandemic had been widely praised, Cuomo has come under growing scrutiny for the March 25 executive order which allowed COVID-19 to spread rapidly in nursing homes. So far at least 5,800 seniors have died in nursing homes and other longtime care facilities.
Florida — which issued an order around the same time keeping COVID-19 patients out of nursing homes — has seen one-seventh of the nursing-home deaths New York has suffered.