#Cuomo #Fredo #Covid #Test #Priority #Pervert #Liar #Granny
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered top-level state health officials to test his family members, including his mother and CNN host brother Chris Cuomo, for COVID-19.
The medical officials enlisted to do the testing - often done at private residences - included Dr Eleanor Adams, a Harvard Medical School graduate who has since become a special adviser to Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker, The Albany Times Union reported.
Testing on Cuomo's family members came at the height of the pandemic when ordinary New Yorkers struggled to get access to screenings.
The news comes on top of a myriad of scandals surrounding the governor, including eight women who have now come forward with allegations of harassment and assault against him. The US Attorney's office and the FBI are also investigating Gov. Cuomo's office for undercounting the true number of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes.
Gov. Cuomo's brother Chris announced that he tested positive for COVID-19 on March 31. Health officials reportedly traveled to his Long Island home to carry out testing, although it is not clear exactly when. Chris, who the host of Cuomo Prime Time, already had access to testing through his work at CNN, along with the rest of the network's employees.
The report by Albany Times Union also stated that Gov. Cuomo's mother, Matilda Cuomo, and one of his three sisters also received test early in the pandemic.
'If their job was to go test an old lady down in New Rochelle, that's one thing — that's actually good,' a source familiar with the matter said. 'This was not that.'
Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Patrick J. Foye, head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, were both given priority testing. Both of their wives were also given priority testing, along with members of the media, state legislators and their staff.
An official in Cuomo's office said of the priority testing: 'It's being a little bit distorted with like a devious intent. ... We made sure to test people they believed were exposed. All of this was being done in good faith in an effort to trace the virus.'
Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to the governor, said that to suggest that there was preferential treatment an 'insincere effort to rewrite the past.'
'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,' Azzopardi said.
'Among those we assisted were members of the general public, including legislators, reporters, state workers and their families who feared they had contracted the virus and had the capability to further spread it.'
But sources familiar with the matter said that the 'sampling missions' unsettled some of the high-level health department officials tasked with collecting the samples - including Adams.
