At the end of March 2020, when COVID-19 was gripping the country, then-president Trump had the USNS Comfort retrofitted and sent to New York's harbor.  With an approximate crew of 1,200 trained personnel and 1,000 beds, the ship's mission was to serve non-COVID-affected patients in order that New York's hospitals could administer to the more critical needs of the COVID-afflicted.

Although the remodeling was expected to take at least four weeks, it was completed in four days as a full-service hospital, replete with its own helicopter pad. 

When regular patients didn't arrive about ten days after pulling into New York City, the ship was retrofitted once again to cordon off an area to treat COVID-19 patients. Still, not many patients showed up.

At the same time, an engineering feat occurred, when the cavernous Javits Center was deftly converted from a convention showroom space to a sophisticated hospital, complete with an intricate oxygen system servicing each bed.  Here, only COVID-19 patients would be treated. 

Governor Cuomo, incomprehensibly, opted not to utilize either facility.  The USNS Comfort left New York a month after its arrival.  Of its 1,000 beds, fewer than 200 were used.  Similarly, the Javits Center, with a capacity of 2,500 beds, was shut down for lack of use. 

Meanwhile, New York's hospitals were jammed with COVID patients.  Since the specially reconfigured facilities were not utilized, the hospitals were vastly overcrowded.  So Governor Cuomo, with an obvious intellectual

deficit, as well as lacking empathy and critical thinking skills, sent COVID patients willy-nilly to nursing facilities, where patients were elderly and disabled.  Thus, Cuomo introduced COVID deliberately into a vulnerable population previously not affected or minimally so by COVID.  The ensuing COVID infection and mortality rates were predictable.  While Cuomo obfuscated the numbers, it is believed that approximately 15,000 people died at nursing homes in New York.  The true number will probably never be ascertained, as Cuomo counted only deaths occurring at the nursing facilities while eliminating deaths that occurred when the patient was transferred from nursing home to hospital. 

Fox Cable News's well-known weather reporter, Janice Dean, publicized the inanity and inhumanity of Cuomo's ill-advised policy — a policy that led to her in-laws' deaths.

But for all the negative commentary, and investigative negative results, Cuomo emerged from the scandal unmoved.  "Who cares?" he defiantly bellowed.  "Hospital...nursing home.  They died."

The Democrats dared not react to Cuomo's rank callousness.  How could they?  Democrat governors in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, and New Jersey also sent COVID patients to nursing homes, where infections spread and deaths multiplied.  Those deaths exceeded over 30% of all COVID deaths.  Democrat governors who facilitated these deaths avoided consequences. 

Yes, California's Governor Newsom is facing a recall election, but not for his handling of COVID.  Newsom is being recalled for facilitating illegal immigration and weakening the criminal justice system.  Michigan's Governor Whitmer has been loudly criticized for her draconian COVID shutdown rules and her hypocritically blatant violation of the tight rules she foisted on her constituents.  But she is still in office.  Governors Pritzker of Illinois and Wolf of Pennsylvania have rotten nursing home facility death rates but have remained relatively untouched by the gruesome numbers.

Now Governor Cuomo has resigned to avoid impeachment proceedings that he would have assuredly lost.  Infuriatingly, he has even had the chutzpah to apply for his pension.

But Cuomo hasn't been hounded from office for killing multiple grannies.  Instead, it was his gropings and multiple sexual improprieties while in office that caused his demise.  The #MeToo warriors successfully attacked, forcing the death of one of the most powerful political dynasties in America today. 

While neither crime is justifiable, one can't help but think murder should have been sufficient to end Cuomo's political life. 

Image: Pat Arnow via Flickr.

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