Of course, anyone who ever worked in these nursing homes knew this was absurd.
Yet that trans doc from Pennsylvania who was behind that state's governor advised the same thing, and as a result an estimated 20 thousand died. But since he is trans you can't criticize him.
The trans-doc also took his own mother from a nursing home in the days leading up to the order.
Back to same nursing home? This patient, 20 yo, was sent to a nursing home to recover from covid:
everyone blames the governor of New York for putting infectious covid patients back into nursing homes, but you know, he was probably following the advice of the state doctors in charge of making policy, who pointed out the Medicare rule was that you had to send the patient back to the same nursing home after hospitalization, and since the bureaucrat who made the rule assumed that nursing home personnel were highly skilled and had plenty of protective equipment, that this should not have been a problem.
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There was a last-minute addition to the March 2020 New York State Budget that gave blanket immunity to nursing homes and hospitals for most deaths, not just covid deaths. I remember reports of there being some sort of kickback arrangement between the NYS Health Facilities Association and Cuomo, possibly for his re-election campaign in 2022.
The blanket immunity extended from March until Cuomo was forced to sign a bill partially repealing the provision in August 2020, but the repeal wasn’t retrospective. The immunity shield still protected nursing homes and healthcare facilities during the worst months of covid. Nor did it affect covid-related deaths and injuries. It merely allowed nursing homes and hospitals to again be held liable in lawsuits and criminal prosecutions for care provided to non-covid patients.
There are some still calling for the repeal of retroactive immunity, but the surge in lawsuits would probably put most nursing home operators out of business. Legislators are instead suggesting that they come up with a state-sponsored victim compensation fund, similar to the one created to help those impacted by the September 11 attacks.
Your point about not blaming Cuomo for the policy could be true, but I have to wonder who else has the ability to make an 11th hour addition to a state budget, and who are the parties who benefit most from the policy in the long term?