Everyone knows the elderly are the most vulnerable to COVID-19, except the governors of New York and New Jersey. In late March, Mario Cuomo (NY) and Phil Murphy (NJ) mandated nursing homes accept hospital patients with CV-19 without enquiring into the patient’s illness. Consequently, New York nursing homes report 5,500 CV-19 deaths, which are more than every other state’s total deaths but New Jersey (source: New York Times). What’s next – sending a free case of wine to every AA meeting?
These Democrats have no excuse. On March 18, CDC guidance was crystal clear: “substantial mortality [can] be averted if all long-term care [homes] prevent exposure of their residents to COVID-19.” Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) followed this advice, allowing Florida nursing homes to refuse hospital transfers and send their CV-19 cases to hospitals. In spite of having 15% more nursing homes than New York, Florida’s homes report only 750 CV-19 deaths.
To be blunt, Florida protected seniors and New York created senior death camps. Yet, legacy news outlets (e.g. CNN) extol Cuomo’s management – and why? Legacy partisan bias: under Cuomo, New York (pop. 19.5M) is broke with 23,000 CV-19 deaths, but Florida (pop. 21.6M) is solvent and reports 2,000 CV-19 deaths. Still, the dogma of Democrats good and Republicans bad remains, until reporters put mom and dad in a nursing home. I’ll bet that’s in Florida.