Dear Reader: We share here a column (www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/dont-forget-andrew-cuomos-other-coronavirus-victims/) published on National Review Online about the other victims harmed by Governor Cuomo’s dangerous nursing-home policies—New Yorkers with intellectual and developmental disabilities living in group homes and residential facilities. As I write:

You know that notorious March 25 order, sending contagious nursing-home patients back to their homes from hospitals? Well, it had a twin. An April 10 memo from the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) to operators of certified residential facilities had identical language to the nursing-home memo, to wit: “No individual shall be denied re-admission or admission to a Certified Residential Facility based solely on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of Covid-19. . . . Additionally, providers of Certified Residential Facilities are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized individual, who is determined medically stable, to be tested for Covd-19 prior to admission or readmission.”

Because of this policy, as I report, at least 483 individuals died as of November. There is still no official accounting from the New York State Office for People with Disabilities, but at a public stakeholders’ telephone meeting last week, it was reported that the count is up to  618, with infections at residential homes climbing past 6500.

Not only that, but as James Freeman reports in the Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com/articles/another-cuomo-cover-up-11614029575), as Governor Cuomo was forcing Covid patients into group homes, “raising the risks for disabled residents there—Team Cuomo was also severely limiting family visits at such facilities. In other words, official Cuomo administration policy requires people with disabilities to accept both greater risk of infection by strangers and less time with relatives.”

So perhaps Governor Cuomo really does deserve his Emmy—his concern for vulnerable human lives affected by the pandemic was all for show, a great performance.