Attempting to deflect criticism of his handling of New York State's COVID-19 nursing home crisis, Governor Andrew Cuomo took aim at Florida, and Florida governor Ron DeSantis is having none of it. When the Finger Lakes Daily News questioned Cuomo's order requiring New York nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients, the governor denied the very premise of the criticism, insisting that "that situation never came to be in New York State because we flattened the curve so effectively that we always had available hospital beds... we never needed nursing home beds because we always had hospital beds... So it just never happened in New York." But Cuomo didn't stop there. "You know where it did happen?" he asked the interviewer. "In Florida. Florida today is doing exactly that. They're forcing nursing homes to take COVID positive patients because they need the beds in the hospitals."
"[U]tterly, unequivocally, unreservedly, undeniably false," was the reaction of Florida governor Ron DeSantis spokesman Fred Piccolo Jr. when presented by The Script with Cuomo's remarks. "[Gov. DeSantis] established Covid only facilities to keep the Microbe out of the general population, Florida’s overall mortality rate is 2%, & we have nearly 15,000 available beds & nearly 22% excess capacity in ICUs[.]" The spokesman suggested perhaps Cuomo was "writing a fiction novel in which case we’d withhold review until we read the manuscript."
When The Script inquired of Gov. Cuomo's spokesman Rich Azzopardi about the source of Cuomo's assertion regarding Florida nursing homes, Azzopardi simply responded with a clipping of a two-and-a-half month old Florida Politics article, highlighting the sentence: "The rule also gives hospitals the green light to discharge residents with an unknown COVID-19 status to nursing homes, as long as the facility has a dedicated wing or building with designated COVID-19 staff." The article, however, references a July 17 Florida emergency rule that seems to bear little resemblance to Cuomo's characterization of the situation in Florida:
SUMMARY: This Emergency Rule establishes a requirement that hospitals must not discharge any long-term care facility resident that has tested positive for COVID-19 or is exhibiting symptoms consistent with COVID-19 to any long-term care facility until the long-term care facility resident has been cleared for discharge using either a test-based strategy or a symptom-based strategy, unless the receiving facility has a dedicated wing, unit or building with dedicated staff to accept the COVID-19 positive resident. This rule allows hospitals to discharge a long-term care facility resident who is awaiting test results for COVID-19, as long as the hospital confirms that the long-term care facility is able to isolate the resident while the hospital’s test results are pending and the hospital confirms that the long-term care facility is able to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) infection prevention and control precautions for a person with unknown COVID-19 status. [emphasis added]
When asked to explain how Gov. Cuomo's assertion that Florida was "forcing nursing homes to take COVID positive patients because they need the beds in the hospitals" squared with the explanation he provided and how Florida's rules compared to New York's, Cuomo's spokesman Azzopardi did not reply.
For his part, DeSantis spokesman Piccolo responded indignantly to the proffered explanation by Gov. Cuomo's spokesman. "Yeah this 'reasoning' is pathetic. Anyone who can read can tell this [Florida emergency] order still is light years ahead of Gov. Cuomo. I actually encourage everyone to read it. if this is what they based their nonsensical accusations on then this has graduated to slanderous balderdash. This paragraph alone tells you all you need to know about how Gov. DeSantis protected the vulnerable. PS I’m from Buffalo. Everyone up there knows the truth." The "paragraph" Piccolo referenced in his reply is from the same Florida Politics article Cuomo's spokesperson referenced and includes this sentence: "Under the latest emergency rule, hospitals can return long-term care residents if it’s been 10 days since COVID-19 symptoms appeared, the patients have seen improvements in their breathing and they have been fever-free for three days without the use of medication."
Regarding Gov. Cuomo's "it just never happened" claim that preceded his shot at Florida, a CNN fact check on Tuesday flatly concluded that "Gov. Cuomo falsely claims New York nursing homes never took in Covid-positive patients":
Cuomo's assertion that "it never happened" is false. According to a report from the New York State Department of Health, "6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to [nursing home] facilities" following Cuomo's mandate that nursing homes accept the readmission of Covid-positive patients from hospitals. Whether or not this was "needed," it did in fact happen.
