Andrew Cuomo’s Family Members Were Given Special Access to COVID Testing

Andrew Cuomo

As the coronavirus panic swept through New York early last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration arranged for his family members and other well-connected figures to have special access to state-administered coronavirus tests, dispatching a top state doctor and other state health officials to their homes, reports The Washington Post.

As part of the program, a state lab immediately processed the results of those who were tested, the people said, even as average New Yorkers were struggling to get tested in the early days of the pandemic due to a scarcity of resources. Initially, the lab was only capable of running several hundred tests a day for a state with 19 million residents.

Among those who benefited from the priority testing program was Cuomo’s brother Chris, who was diagnosed with covid-19 in late March of 2020. The CNN anchor was swabbed by a top New York Department of Health doctor, who visited his Hamptons home to collect samples from him and his family, the people with knowledge of the matter said.

The same doctor, Eleanor Adams, now a top adviser to the state health commissioner, was also enlisted to test multiple other Cuomo family members, according to two people familiar with the program, according to the Post. 

The coronavirus test specimens were then rushed — at times driven by state police troopers — to the Wadsworth Center, a state public health lab in Albany, where they were processed immediately, the people said. At times, employees in the state health laboratory were kept past their shifts until late into the night to process results of those close to Cuomo. 

The specimens were shrouded in secrecy, marked only by initials or numbers. Results were then provided to the family members, the Post continued.

Have I mentioned that those close to power reap the benefits of power when there is government central planning of a sector of the economy?

BTW, Cuomo is done. Whoever is behind the takeout is very powerful. I can't imagine what crony operations the takeout artist will run when he is the behind-the-scenes power puppetmaster.

 -RW