NY’s Cuomo: Americans Can’t Trust Trump Admin on CCP Virus Vaccine

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during the daily media briefing at the Office of the Governor of the State of New York in New York City, N.Y., on June 12, 2020. Jeenah Moon/Getty Images

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Oct. 19 that he has little trust in the Trump administration’s handling of a CCP virus vaccine, urging Americans to be “very skeptical” about vaccines distributed by federal agencies.

Cuomo, whose state has endured morer than 34,000 reported deaths from the CCP virus pandemic, said during an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he’s “not that confident” that the Trump administration could develop vaccines that are reliable and safe.

“I don’t believe the American people are that confident,” he told host George Stephanopoulos. “You’re going to say to the American people now, ‘Here’s a vaccine, it was new, it was done quickly, but trust this federal administration and their health administration that it’s safe’? ‘Uh, and um, and we’re not 100 percent sure of the consequences’? I think it’s going to be a very skeptical American public about taking the vaccine, and they should be.”

When asked what it would take to convince him that the vaccine is safe and effective enough to be distributed, Cuomo said he would only trust the assessments of his own New York state agencies, adding that both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are no longer credible under the Trump administration.

“What I said I’m going to do in New York is we’re going to put together our own group of doctors and medical experts to review the vaccine and the efficacy and the protocol,” he said. “If they say it’s safe, then I'll go to the people of New York and I will say it’s safe, with that credibility.”

“I believe all across the country, you’re going to need someone other than this FDA and this CDC saying it’s safe,” he said. “If this administration continued, the CDC and the FDA doesn’t have any credibility.”

Cuomo, who has recently published a book about his “remarkable leadership during crisis,” continues to be under fire for a March 25 directive that required nursing homes and adult care facilities to take in COVID-19 patients. Many of his critics say the order has contributed to the estimated 6,500 deaths that occurred in nursing homes across the state.

Cuomo, on many occasions, has dismissed the idea that his order is associated with lives lost to COVID-19 in nursing homes. He claimed on Oct. 18 during a press briefing that it was the health care workers and visiting family members who brought the CCP virus into those facilities.

“What happened in nursing homes was the virus got into nursing homes from staff who had the infection and at a time when nobody knew it, before we had any testing capacity,” he said.

“Also it may have gotten into nursing homes early on by family visitation on the same theory. The nation was told only symptomatic people can spread it. So family members who were not symptomatic went to nursing homes to visit.”