Now he cares about the elderly catching COVID-19.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo — whose administration infamously ordered the state’s nursing homes to accept coronavirus-stricken patients at the height of the pandemic last year — tried to guilt young people Monday into getting vaccinated by warning they could kill their grandparents if they don’t.
“There is an attitude that they’ll be fine, why should they take the vaccine?” the governor said at a press briefing, referring to young people.
“My argument is, yeah, maybe you’ll be fine, and by the way, you don’t know that either,’’ the governor said. “Maybe you will get a long-haul syndrome that we’re not really be sure what it is yet but a lingering consequence of COVID.
“Or maybe you’ll go home and kiss your grandmother and wind up killing your grandmother. So show some civic responsibility,’’ Cuomo said.
His comments come just over a year after the state Health Department’s controversial edict that sent nursing home residents who tested positive for the virus back to the facilities — even though the elderly are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.
A February analysis of data by the nonprofit Empire Center for Public Policy found that “several hundred and possibly more than 1,000” fatalities from the virus in nursing homes in the state could be tied to the policy — despite the Cuomo administration insisting it was not a “significant factor” in the toll.
Cuomo and his aides are accused of then withholding the true number of nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 by excluding those who ultimately passed away in hospitals — a scandal that is now at the center of state and federal probes.
Critics ripped Cuomo for his remarks Monday.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is urging young adults in New York to get vaccinated to protect elderly people like their grandparents.Timothy A. Clary/Pool via AP“Getting our population vaccinated is critical,” GOP state
Assemblyman William Barclay of Syracuse told The Post on Monday. “But the governor doesn’t need to remind anyone of the price senior citizens paid during this pandemic.
“His March 25th order forced COVID into nursing homes,” Barclay said.
“The families of 15,500 won’t soon forget it,” the pol added, referring to the number of nursing-home fatalities from the coronavirus.
State Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Democrat from Queens, has demanded that Cuomo resign over his handling of the state’s nursing homes, alleging that the governor even threatened him in a phone call if he didn’t toe the administration line on the scandal.
“[Cuomo] pointed to deflated numbers touting that New York wasn’t as bad as other states,” Kim told The Post on Monday, referring to the governor’s past comments about New York’s nursing-home fatalities during the pandemic.
“The insensitive nature of how he talks about older adults … like when he said ‘who cares’ where they died … that kind of tone and language has an impact,” Kim added, referencing what a defensive Cuomo said when pressed on the statistics in January.
The governor noted Monday that older people have the highest vaccination rate in the state — with more than 70 percent of those between the ages of 65 and 74 fully immunized.
Just 18.l5 percent of those between ages 16 and 25 have been vaccinated, he said — though they have only been eligible to receive the shot for a month.
