FOR WEEKS, Andrew Cuomo believed that all the chatter about the nursing-home scandal, and the creeping doubts about his management of the pandemic, was mere noise. He would get past it, and a glorious spring of vaccinations and school reopenings would give way to a summer of carnivals and crowded beaches and bars. Attention would then turn to his reelection bid, and he would be The Man Who Brought New York Back from its year of COVID-induced death and misery.
Forgotten by then would be the directive his administration issued that forced nursing homes to accept COVID patients from hospitals, causing, his critics claim, the disease to rip through them like a match in dry grass. Forgotten, too, would be the allegation that the administration covered up the death toll…
