Read this:
“Because then we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation… That played a very large role into this.”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s aide, Melissa DeRosa, in a private call to Democrats in the New York State Assembly, explaining why the Cuomo administration released false numbers about the number of COVID deaths in the state’s nursing homes. The call was later leaked.
You can tell a child is lying when:
- The child does not want to take responsibility.
- What the child is saying makes no sense, is a series of run-together sentences, includes “you guys,” and blames a bogeyman. The evil Justice Department.
- The child does not realize that the story being told gives the reason the child lied in the first place.
- The explanation the child gives is different from explanations given previously.
- The child originally told a whopper.
Then, to add whipped cream and a cherry on top of a spinning frenzy of a stream of conscience, the child adds, “Basically, we froze.” Then the child apologizes to the wrong people for the wrong thing. So, of course, Ms. DeRosa apologized to the Democrats in the New York State Assembly, “So, we do apologize. I do understand the position that you were put in. I know that it is not fair. It was not our intent to put you in that political position with the Republicans.”
Ms. LaRosa’s public explanation was different from the phone call explanation. The public explanation put the bogeyman of our times, Donald Trump, as the real problem. Donald Trump’s Justice Department made them do it because Mr. Trump was questioning nursing home admission mandates in several states. As much as a child wants to blame someone else, the blame must go back to the root cause.
Mr. Trump was raising the nursing home mandates not as a political but in response to reports from medical experts about the March 25 Cuomo mandate. That follow-the-science-mandate seems to have been flexible. Dr. Elaine Healy, a clinician, an experienced medical director, and an officer in an association of nursing homes in New York sent information to the Wall Street Journal on March 25 2020 about the Cuomo mandate for nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients. Dr. Healy was contacting everyone she could to stop the madness of the mandate. Dr. Healy contacted radio host Mark Levin to disclose the mandate. Mr. Levin, so shocked, initially accused her of being a hoax call.
By May, the Wall Street Journal ran a full story on the real damage the Cuomo policy was causing. Despite FOIA requests, no one could get the New York Department of Health to release the real death numbers. The growing outrage, spearheaded by weatherperpson Janice Dean, who lost two family members in nursing homes to COVID, continued. In August 2020, New York’s Attorney General began an investigation. That report was released just weeks ago with the stunning truth — the number of nursing home deaths in New York City was understated by 40-50%. (See February 1, 2021 post)
Governor Cuomo responded, “But who cares? 33 [percent]. 28 [percent]. Died in a hospital. Died in a nursing home. They died.” A child does not process harm to others — only the harm to himself that will result if he tells the truth. A child does not process his role in the harm. Again, the child is focused on immediate harm to himself, not damage to others.
The families who lost loved ones are owed an apology. Absent governmental immunity, the damages owed to the loved ones, not only being for being kept in the dark but being kept away from their loved ones just when they were most needed, would induce salivation in class-action lawyers. The families, who were COVID-free, were not permitted into these nursing homes to be with their loved ones. These dear souls ended their earthly sojourn alone. As a comedian noted, “In New York, you had to have COVID to get into a nursing home.”
What happened in New York is a tragedy beyond description. The measure of the character of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable. There is one more measure: What s society does when it learns of abuse of the most vulnerable. The real number of deaths was 15,000. The number the Cuomo administration reported was 8,671. This was one heck of a whopper.
What now? One wants o scream, “Enough with the politics! Grow up!” Sadly, the children are still in charge, weaving more tales and spinning more yarns. Society weeps, both for its losses and at the reflection in the mirror of a society that has sunk to a new low.
