House COVID-19 Panel Requests Testimony From 4 former Cuomo Admin Officials; Do We Simply Not Care About Old People? And other C-Virus related stories
House COVID-19 panel requests testimony from 4 former Cuomo admin officials:
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has asked four former members of disgraced New York ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration to testify on “must admit” orders issued to nursing homes at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Letters were sent out Friday to Elizabeth Garvey, a former special counselor and senior adviser to Cuomo; Gareth Rhodes, the former deputy superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services; James Malatras, the ex-governor’s former policy adviser; and Linda Lacewell, the former superintendent of the Department of Financial Services.
The letters requested that they sit for in person transcribed interviews before the Republican-led panel investigating government actions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) warned the foursome that the committee “will be forced to evaluate the use of the compulsory” measures if they don’t appear for the voluntary interviews next month.
Under Cuomo, New York’s Department of Health issued an order on March 25, 2020, that forced senior care facilities to accept COVID-positive patients discharged from hospitals.
The then-governor partially rescinded that mandate during a May 10, 2020, press conference, preventing COVID-infected New Yorkers from being moved directly from hospitals to nursing homes while allowing admissions from other facilities.
In a July 2020 report, Cuomo’s administration downplayed the total number of COVID fatalities related to the policy by excluding deaths of patients that occurred outside of any facilities. —>READ MORE HERE
Do we simply not care about old people?
The covid-19 pandemic would be a wake-up call for America, advocates for the elderly predicted: incontrovertible proof that the nation wasn’t doing enough to care for vulnerable older adults.
The death toll was shocking, as were reports of chaos in nursing homes and seniors suffering from isolation, depression, untreated illness, and neglect. Around 900,000 older adults have died of covid-19 to date, accounting for 3 of every 4 Americans who have perished in the pandemic
But decisive actions that advocates had hoped for haven’t materialized. Today, most people — and government officials — appear to accept covid as a part of ordinary life. Many seniors at high risk aren’t getting antiviral therapies for covid, and most older adults in nursing homes aren’t getting updated vaccines. Efforts to strengthen care quality in nursing homes and assisted living centers have stalled amid debate over costs and the availability of staff. And only a small percentage of people are masking or taking other precautions in public despite a new wave of covid, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus infections hospitalizing and killing seniors.
In the last week of 2023 and the first two weeks of 2024 alone, 4,810 people 65 and older lost their lives to covid — a group that would fill more than 10 large airliners — according to data provided by the CDC. But the alarm that would attend plane crashes is notably absent. (During the same period, the flu killed an additional 1,201 seniors, and RSV killed 126.)
“It boggles my mind that there isn’t more outrage,” said Alice Bonner, 66, senior adviser for aging at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “I’m at the point where I want to say, ‘What the heck? Why aren’t people responding and doing more for older adults?’”
It’s a good question. Do we simply not care?
I put this big-picture question, which rarely gets asked amid debates over budgets and policies, to health care professionals, researchers, and policymakers who are older themselves and have spent many years working in the aging field. Here are some of their responses. —>READ MORE HERE
Follow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
Ford government faces legal action over licence to long-term care home with ‘highest’ COVID-19 death rate
U study: Most ‘excess deaths’ during pandemic were COVID
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
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