Initially, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was praised for his handling of the state’s covid-19 crisis and his daily news updates were getting glowing reviews. Now he’s under fire, accused of mishandling the vaccine distribution and micromanaging the state’s pandemic response.
On top of this, some critics say Cuomo was too busy promoting his new book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” instead of paying attention to the growing concerns of New Yorkers over coronavirus.
Cuomo’s penchant for micromanagement played a role in a vaccine distribution bottleneck, preventing more shots from getting into arms, some observers said. It also played a role in nine top state health officials quitting their jobs, Business Insider reported.
When the governor decided to dismiss pre-existing county-level plans to administer the vaccine and take control himself, it resulted in defections from state medical experts, according to a recently published New York Times investigation.
Cuomo, along with other governors, complained that his state has not received the level of doses it needs. However, Cuomo’s efforts to take control of the state’s distribution plan caused major problems.
Among the resignations was the deputy commissioner for the New York State Department of Health, who quit in late summer, followed by the director of the Department of Health bureau for communicable disease control, then the medical director for epidemiology, then the top state epidemiologist last month, according to the Times.
Nine people in all have resigned from the department so far.
“The departures have underscored the extent to which pandemic policy has been set by the governor, who with his aides crafted a vaccination program beset by early delays,” The New York Times reported.
Cuomo’s decision to rely on hospitals instead of county health departments to administer the vaccine put the state government at a disadvantage, said Dr. Denis Nash, an epidemiology professor at the City University of New York. Nash is a former senior official for the New York City Department of Health.
“That was the bottleneck,” Nash told the Times. “To put hospitals in charge of a public health initiative — for which they have no public health mandate, or the skills, experience, or perspective to manage one — was a huge mistake, and I have no doubt that’s what introduced the delays.”
Cuomo clashed with his own experts, and has been accused of leaving vaccine distribution planning to the consulting firms Deloitte and BCG along with a lobbyist for the largest private hospital network in New York.
“When I say ‘experts’ in air quotes, it sounds like I’m saying I don’t really trust the experts,” Cuomo said at a recent news conference, referring to scientific expertise at all levels of government during the pandemic. “Because I don’t. Because I don’t.”
Twitter came down hard on the governor.
CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted that Cuomo’s statement about not trusting experts was a “Wildly irresponsible thing to say during a pandemic.”
“Has Cuomo lost his mind? He was the voice of reason a year ago regarding COVID19 response,” a Twitter user wrote. “Everyone watched his morning briefings about about flattening curve/wearing masks/social distancing/staying home/supporting healthcare workers. He seems to have completely jumped tracks!”.
But others took offense at the critics.
One person responded, “@jaketapper Stop dissing Coumo! He was out front staring facts from Day One whilst Drumpf’s so called experts were suggesting Clorox injections- Supposed Experts stood stone cold faced & said very little!!! -Majorly disappointed @CNN”
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Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic has also come under scrutiny from the state Attorney General Letitia James. She said Cuomo’s administration had undercounted the tally of covid-19 deaths of nursing home residents by not publicly disclosing deaths of those residents that occurred at hospitals, The New York Times reported.
“Morale certainly was and continues to be at an all-time low,” one former New York health official said.
