WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th March, 2021) Members of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's family got special access to state coronavirus tests early on in the pandemic, The Washington Post reports citing three sources.
As part of the program, a top state doctor and other state health officials were dispatched to the homes of Cuomo's relatives and other "well-connected figures" and a state lab immediately processed their COVID-19 test results, the newspaper reported on Thursday.
"In the early days of this pandemic, when there was a heavy emphasis on contact tracing, we were absolutely going above and beyond to get people testing � including in some instances going to people's homes � and door to door in places like New Rochelle � to take samples from those believed to have been exposed to COVID in order to identify cases and prevent additional ones," Rich �Azzopardi, a Cuomo spokesman, said in a statement quoted by The Washington Post.
Azzopardi said members of the general public were tested, including legislators, reporters, state workers and their families.
Sources told The Washington Post that the brother of New York Governor Cuomo, Chris Cuomo, was tested by top New York Department of Health doctor, Eleanor Adams, who visited his Hamptons home to collect samples from him and his family. Chris was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March, 2020.
Adams was enlisted to test other Cuomo family members as well, the newspaper said, and the test results were rushed to the Wadsworth Center in Albany, where lab workers were kept past their shifts to process the test results of those close to Cuomo.
The revelations come amid calls for Cuomo to resign as the 63-year-old New York governor has been accused of sexual harassment by several women.
Aside from accusations of impropriety, the state attorney general's office is also investigating Cuomo for his handling of New York's coronavirus outbreak, particularly the alleged coverup of the deaths of people who originally contracted the virus in state nursing homes that apparently did not receive due care.
