ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Relations of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others with connections to him obtained particular entry to coronavirus assessments a 12 months in the past when testing was scarce, in accordance with revealed stories in newspapers.
Members of Cuomo’s household together with his brother, CNN journalist Chris Cuomo, his mom and a minimum of one in every of his sisters had been examined by prime well being division officers, a few of them a number of occasions, in accordance with the Occasions Union of Albany.
The testing of individuals intently tied to the Democratic governor was carried out by high-ranking state well being officers, The New York Occasions reported. It largely occurred within the early days of the pandemic in March 2020.
The newspapers cited a number of folks with direct information of the testing however didn’t establish them.
Wealthy Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo, didn’t explicitly deny that the administration had prolonged particular therapy to folks near the governor however sought to dispute the notion.
“Within the early days of this pandemic, when there was a heavy emphasis on contact tracing, we had been completely going above and past to get folks testing,” Azzopardi stated in an announcement to the newspapers, including that the hassle included “in some cases going to folks’s properties — and door-to door-in locations like New Rochelle — to take samples from these believed to have been uncovered to Covid with a view to establish instances” and to forestall others from growing the illness.
Chris Cuomo was identified with COVID-19 in late March of 2020. The CNN anchor was swabbed by a prime state well being division physician who visited his Hamptons house to gather samples from him and his household, folks with information of the matter advised The Washington Submit, which didn’t establish them.
In an announcement late Wednesday, CNN spokesperson Matt Dornic stated: “We typically don’t get entangled within the medical selections of our staff. Nevertheless, it isn’t stunning that within the earliest days of a once-in-a-century international pandemic, when Chris was exhibiting signs and was involved about potential unfold, he turned to anybody he might for recommendation and help, as any human being would.”
The identical physician who examined Chris Cuomo, Eleanor Adams, now a prime adviser to the state well being commissioner, additionally was enlisted to check different Cuomo relations, two folks accustomed to this system advised The Washington Submit.
The coronavirus check specimens had been then rushed to the Wadsworth Heart, a state public well being lab in Albany, the place they had been processed instantly, the folks stated.
Information of the precedence testing program comes because the third-term governor battles controversies on a number of fronts, together with an investigation by the state lawyer common into allegations of sexual harassment, which Cuomo has denied, and a federal inquiry into the state’s reporting of COVID-19 in nursing properties.
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