Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday he’s not going to make any more predictions about whether his state’s efforts to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic are successful or not.
“Now, people can speculate, people can guess, I think next week, I think two weeks, I think a month,” Cuomo told reporters, according to Syracuse.com. “I’m out of that business, because we all failed at that business. All the early national experts, here’s my projection, here’s my projection model, they were all all wrong, they were all wrong.”
President of the Intrepid Former Crew members Association Stuart Gelband (r) wearing a protective mask salutes next to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo during the Memorial day ceremony at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York, U.S., May 25, 2020. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
The governor suggested it’s too early to detect any changes in public health because the virus can remain dormant for 10 days and new infections could have occurred before the state began reopening the economy. (RELATED: Gov. Cuomo Says Medical Workers Who Voluntarily Travelled To New York Must Pay State Income Tax)
“Now, there are a lot of variables, I understand that,” Cuomo continued. “We didn’t know what social distancing would actually amount to, I get it. But we were all wrong. So I’m sort of out of the guessing business.”
New York and specifically New York City has been the epicenter of the COVID-19 virus in the United States. Cuomo would not speculate Monday on when America’s largest city would reopen.
Cuomo promised to reopen the state cautiously, region by region, only after ensuring infection and death rates are declining. (RELATED: Chris Cuomo Has Yet To Ask Andrew Cuomo About New York Nursing Home Deaths. Here Are 9 Questions He Asked Instead)
Cuomo ordered nursing homes and other assisted living centers on March 25 to be occupied by elderly patients infected with the coronavirus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci (L), director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens to U.S. President Donald Trump speak during a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, in the press briefing room of the White House on March 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Cuomo did not reverse that policy until May 11. A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation also discovered that New York deliberately undercounted the number of deaths in nursing homes.
Just 12% of New York’s roughly 26,000 coronavirus deaths have occurred in nursing homes, Cuomo said. “Whatever we’re doing has worked, on the facts,” he added.
The governor has blamed President Donald Trump for the nursing home catastrophe, suggesting he was merely following federal government guidelines on where to send nursing home residents infected with the virus.