Gov. Andrew Cuomo plays politics as coronavirus cases spike in US
Cuomo goes after red state governors over spikes in COVID-19 cases; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will be on a slate of speakers who will address the 2020 Democratic National Convention on Monday night.
The 62-year-old Democrat currently serves as the 56th governor of New York -- having assumed office on Jan. 1, 2011 -- and is currently serving his third consecutive term. His father, Mario Cuomo, served as New York's governor from 1983 through 1994.
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Recently, Cuomo was one of the most consequential faces in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic after New York became an early U.S. epicenter of the outbreak.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appears at a press conference at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, July 18, 2018, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
From March until June, while the world grappled with the fallout from the pandemic, Cuomo held daily briefings about the steps New York was taking to combat the virus while informing citizens about the daily infection rate across the entire state. The briefings were watched by millions of Americans.
Cuomo has been praised by Democrats across the nation for leadership that helped flatten the curve of infections in New York. In recent weeks, the infection rate, once surging, has hovered around 1%.
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Although the daily briefings ended, the Democratic governor continues to inform the public about New York's progress. He also has been very active on Twitter, repeatedly tweeting about New York's guidelines as well as the daily infection, hospitalization rate and death toll.
Nursing homes, however, have become a particular sore point for the Cuomo administration, which has generally received praise for steps that flattened the curve of infections and New York’s highest-in-the-nation death toll.
A controversial March 25 order to send recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals into nursing homes that was designed to free up hospital bed space at the height of the pandemic has drawn withering criticism from relatives and patient advocates who contend it accelerated nursing home outbreaks.
Cuomo reversed the order under pressure in early May. And his health department later released an internal report that concluded asymptomatic nursing home staffers were the real spreaders of the virus, not the 6,300 recovering patients released from hospitals into nursing homes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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