STUNNING! Cuomo Refused to Invest in More Ventilators for Pandemics – Instead Invested in Boondoggle Solar Panel Farm

As reported earlier New York Governor Andrew Cuomo dismissed purchasing emergency ventilators for the state in case of a pandemic.

Instead the Cuomo administration organized a medical panel in the state to design a color-coded system to label patients on who would receive the ventilator during a pandemic.

The TGP report written by contributor Kristinn Taylor was based on a column published earlier this month by the esteemed former New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey (who served under Governor George Pataki), a February report by the New York Times and a 2015 press release by the Cuomo administration.

And we also discovered evidence from a New York State Health Department important report on why the decision was made to reject purchasing emergency ventilators.

The extra ventilators were not purchased due to funding concerns.

Page 30 of 272 pages.

The Cuomo Administration rejected the purchase of the ventilators and as The New York Times reported they focused on lotteries and death panels instead.

Real Clear Politics reported:

At its most severe, coronavirus attacks the lungs, making it impossible to breathe without a ventilator. Landing in the hospital on a ventilator is bad. But worse is being told you can’t have one. After learning that the state’s stockpile of medical equipment had 16,000 fewer ventilators than New Yorkers would need in a severe pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to a fork in the road in 2015. He could have chosen to buy more ventilators. Instead, he asked his health commissioner, Howard Zucker to assemble a task force and draft rules for rationing the ventilators they already had.

That task force came up with rules that will be imposed when ventilators run short. Patients assigned a red code will have the highest access, and other patients will be assigned green, yellow or blue (the worst) depending on a “triage officer’s” decision. In truth, a death officer. Let’s not sugarcoat it. It won’t be up to your own doctor.

Cuomo could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators for $36,000 apiece or a total of $576 million in 2015. It’s a lot of money but less than the $750 million he threw away on a boondoggle “Buffalo Billion” solar panel factory. When it comes to state budget priorities, spending half a percent of the budget on ventilators is a no brainer.

Now the pandemic is actually here. Cuomo’s grim reaper rules will be applied. New York City’s deputy commissioner for disease control Demetre Daskalakis is anticipating “some very serious difficult decisions.” So far, in New York City, 1 out of every 4 people with a confirmed case has been hospitalized, and 44% of them have needed a ventilator.

In January The New York Post reported on Governor Cuomo’s Buffalo Bust.

Cuomo’s solar panel boondoggle in Buffalo went bust.

In testimony Tuesday, Empire State Development boss Howard Zemsky tried to put a positive spin on it, but he acknowledged that Cuomo’s gamble of $750 million in taxpayer funds on a Buffalo solar panel plant has bombed: On its current course, there’s zero sign it can host anything like the promised number of jobs.

The project “has got a better future than it has a past,” Zemsky lamely claimed, while admitting the state’s now looking at a Plan B: “I think we have to work with Panasonic and Tesla,” the firms running the plant, to diversify their product base. Maybe they should start making fairy dust?

Zemsky’s testimony was a sad comment not just on solar as a replacement for fossil fuel but also Cuomo’s failed and costly approach to economic development.

The $750 million has led to just 700 jobs at the plant, far below promises, let alone any remotely reasonable return on the public’s investment. Meanwhile, the feds convicted multiple close Cuomo associates of corruption tied to the Buffalo Billion projects.

On Tuesday President Donald Trump read off a Gateway Pundit article headline to FOX News anchor Bill Hemmer during their interview, “NY Gov. Cuomo Rejected Buying Recommended 16,000 Ventilators in 2015 for Pandemic, Established Death Panels and Lottery Instead.

Now we know that not only did Cuomo not purchase excess ventilators for emergencies but he used state funds on a solar panel boondoggle instead.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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