New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is under further investigation for continuing to rush COVID-19 testing for family, friends, and others despite being exposed for showing favoritism in March.
A new report from the New York Times states that even though the same investigators who are evaluating the Democrat administration’s nursing home death toll scandal have expanded their review to encompass the beneficiaries of Cuomo’s priority testing, the governor continued to hand out special testing privileges to specific people.
Shortly before Easter in early April, one of Cuomo’s daughters and her boyfriend were allowed access to rushed testing that gave them results within a few hours. According to the Times, they were prioritized because “they were going to see the governor for the holiday.”
“The use of the priority system at Wadsworth for the couple was out of the ordinary and raised concern among some in the Health Department that the governor’s family was again receiving treatment unavailable to other New Yorkers,” the Times reported. “Health officials wondered why the couple had not gotten tested at one of the many sites now open around New York. The couple declined to comment.”
News first broke in March that Cuomo reportedly gave special COVID-19 testing privileges to his family and other “well-connected figures” in the state, raising eyebrows since state law bans officials “from using their positions to secure privileges for themselves or others.”
Among those who benefitted from Cuomo’s favoritism was the infamous CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, who repeatedly ran interference for his brother in the early months of the pandemic by joking around on live television and refusing to ask him questions about the rising nursing home death toll that resulted from the governor’s deadly policy. Giorgio DeRosa, a lobbyist and the father of the governor’s senior aide Melissa DeRosa, who helped orchestrate the cover-up of the state’s nursing home scandal, also benefitted from his relationship with Cuomo by gaining access to prioritized testing.
As noted by the New York Times, Cuomo’s office has yet to dispute that “the governor’s family and others received priority access to testing in the pandemic’s early weeks.”
