Cuomo swipes at Trump saying there’s ‘no time for politics’ as he reveals drop in state’s death rate

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo took another swipe at Donald Trump on Saturday by channeling Abraham Lincoln saying there’s ‘no time for politics’ as he announced the state’s death rate has dropped to the lowest since April 1. 

Speaking in his daily press briefing, Cuomo said he had some ‘good news’ for New Yorkers as he revealed that daily deaths, hospitalizations, intubations and ICU admissions continued to fall.  

As the nation’s crisis epicenter seems to have reached its peak, Cuomo announced that 504 people died from coronavirus Friday, the lowest death toll since April 1 and far lower than the state’s peak of 806 on April 7.   

The governor went on to make a series of thinly-veiled digs at Trump, in which he recited Lincoln’s famous quote – ‘a house divided itself cannot stand’ – and reminded him ‘that’s why we’re called the “United” States.’ 

His comments come after he blasted the president Friday, mocking his demand for gratitude for federal help and saying: ‘Thank you for doing your job’.   

In Saturday’s update, Cuomo warned that although the falling death toll is promising, New York still has some dark days ahead as ‘540 families’ still lost their loved ones in a single day, including 36 across the state’s nursing homes. 

‘It’s not as high as it was but still 540 people died yesterday,’ he said.

‘It’s 540 people, 540 families.’ 

Total hospitalizations are also down from around 18,000 to almost 16,000 and emergency rooms are less crowded, Cuomo continued.

‘We increased hospital capacity by 53 percent’ and that capacity is now falling, he said.

Cuomo said the figures show that New York has gone past its peak and is now on a curve down to where it was late-March when cases and deaths started to rise. 

‘We’re down now for several days. The statisticians will say have we passed the apex? Have we hit the plateau and flattened for a period of time?’ he said.

He added: ‘If you look at the past three days you could argue that we are past the plateau and we’re starting to descend which is very good news.’ 

The number of people being intubated when they come into the state’s hospitals has also fallen which Cuomo said is ‘very good news’. 

‘The probability is about 80 percent won’t come off ventilators when they go on them so [the fall in numbers] is very good news,’ he said.

ICU admissions have also fallen, Cuomo said, before adding that he does ‘not know why we include this’. 

But there was still some ‘sobering news’ he said.    

‘We still have about 2,000 people yesterday who were new admissions to hospitals or new COVID diagnoses,’ he said. ‘That is still overwhelming.’

Nursing homes continue to be a big concern, however, with Cuomo citing these ‘the single biggest fear’ because they cluster a lot of ‘vulnerable people in one place’.

Nursing homes will be ‘top of the list’ for testing when the state reopens, he added.

After several weeks of locking heads with Trump, Cuomo went on to make yet another thinly-veiled dig at the president and his response to the pandemic telling him ‘there’s no time for politics’ while Americans are dying. 

‘The emotion in this country is as high as I can recall… and on every level this is a terrible experience,’ he said.

‘It’s disorientating, it threatens you to your core… It makes you reflect on your whole life, it’s mentally very difficult… economically it’s disastrous.

‘But in the midst of this there is no time for politics. How does the situation get worse? If you politicize it.’

Cuomo reinforced his previous claims that he is not politically motivated and is not planning to run for president.

‘I’m not running for anything, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be governor of New York state until the people kick me out,’ he said.

‘I have no political agenda and I’ve stayed 100 miles away from politics just so people know.’

In a rousing speech, Cuomo channeled Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand’ as he pleaded with the US to unite in its fight against the pandemic. 

‘The house can also not stand up and rise against a situation as bad as we’ve seen since World War Two,’ Cuomo said.

‘That’s why we’re called the “United” States and the “United” is key.’ 

When pressed about his opinion on Trump’s actions this week – including backing protesters calling for an end to lockdown – Cuomo remained fairly tight-lipped.

He pointed out that Trump said he would leave the decision around reopening to individual states and agreed that it should not be a nationwide reopening because different states have different levels of the pandemic.

‘[Trump] did not say this is a nationwide program that he’s asking governors to buy into,’ said Cuomo.

When asked about the risk that lack of national guidance would mean people would be able to travel between states with different degrees of lockdowns, Cuomo admitted this is a ‘downside’. 

‘Is that a downside of a 50-state strategy? You could say that,’ he said.  

Testing and contact tracing will be critical to reopening New York safely, to avoid a renewed spike in infections and deaths, Cuomo said.

‘The tension on reopening is how can we reopen and what can we reopen without raising the infection rate,’ he said.

Cuomo explained that the infection rate in New York has now fallen to one person infecting 0.9 other people, down from one person infecting 1.4 people.

The concern is that if the state reopens too soon, the rate will rise and there is a ‘very tight window’ before the rate would reach devastating levels once again. 

‘When you start to reopen businesses, you put people on subways, in a retail store… you’re going to see more infections and see the infection rate rise,’ said Cuomo.

‘So how do we gauge this and calibrate that? It’s all about the testing.’  

The state has approached its top 50 labs asking what they would need to double the testing. 

Cuomo said: ‘They all said the same thing: They need more chemical reagents. We need the federal government to oversee the supply chain and help get labs what they need.’

Chemical reagents are critical to running coronavirus tests as they isolate the virus’s genetic material so it can be tested.

But officials and the CDC have repeatedly warned the chemicals are in short supply.

Cuomo issued another plea for the government to work in partnership with states in sharing out the products needed to upscale testing and get the nation up and running.

‘The federal government is telling companies who to give it to,’ Cuomo said.

‘We need help from the federal government, help with the supply chain, and coordination and basic partnership,’ he said.   

‘I get that it’s hard… I get that in this society it’s going to be a blame game… that’s the world we live in,’ he said. 

‘But we need their coordination and we need their partnership. I get that we need to fund airlines and need to fund small businesses – I get that but we ned to fund state governments too.’ 

His comments come as worrying research from the National League of Cities and the US Conference of Mayors this week revealed that more than 2,100 US cities across the US are bracing for huge budget shortfalls that will lead to thousands of layoffs, cuts in vital services and less cops on the streets during the coronavirus pandemic.  

Almost nine in 10 cities (88 percent), ranging from smaller cities with populations of less than 50,000 residents to the biggest metropolitan areas in the country, have said they are preparing for a revenue shortfall. 

More than 1,100 cities are preparing to scale back their public services, and 600 say they may have to lay off some government workers as a result of lower budgets, which could have devastating consequences on public services including police forces.