Republican Texas Governor Gregg Abbott announced on Twitter numerous achievements Texas has made in its fight against COVID-19, including the first day there were zero COVID-19 related deaths and the fewest COVID-19 cases in 13 months.
Abbott tweeted, “Today Texas reported: * 0 Covid related deaths–the only time that’s happened since data was tracked in March, 2020. * the fewest Covid cases in over 13 months * the lowest 7-day Covid positivity rate ever * the lowest Covid hospitalizations in 11 months. Thanks, Texans!”
Today Texas reported:
* 0 Covid related deaths–the only time that's happened since data was tracked in March, 2020.
* the fewest Covid cases in over 13 months
* the lowest 7-day Covid positivity rate ever
* the lowest Covid hospitalizations in 11 months.
Thanks, Texans!
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 17, 2021
Abbott’s announcement comes just two months after President Biden, who has called the COVID-19 policy of the state with the second highest deaths per capita the “gold standard,” claimed Abbott’s decision to fully reopen was “neanderthal thinking.”
“I think it’s a big mistake,” Biden said in a response to a question about Texas and Mississippi reopening. “Look, I hope everybody’s realized by now these masks make a difference. We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way in which we’re able to get vaccines in people’s arms. We’ve been able to move that all the way up to the end of May to have enough for every American, to get every adult American to get a shot.”
“The last thing, the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime everything’s fine, take off your mask,” Biden continued. “Forget it. It still matters. … And it’s critical — critical, critical, critical — that they follow the science. Wash your hands, hot water, do it frequently. Wear a mask and stay socially distanced. And I know you all know that; I wish the heck some of our elected officials knew it.”
A few months before Biden’s “neanderthal thinking” remark, he said in an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, “Your governor in New York’s done one hell of a job. I think he’s the gold standard.”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s policies, which are Biden’s “gold standard,” includes a directive that barred nursing homes from refusing people who were infected with COVID-19, and then suppression of the data on COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes while Cuomo was working on his book about his leadership during the pandemic.
“The new number of 9,056 recovering patients sent to hundreds of nursing homes is more than 40% higher than what the state health department previously released,” The Associated Press reported. “The new figures come as the Cuomo administration has been forced in recent weeks to acknowledge it has been underreporting the overall number of COVID-19 deaths among long-term care residents. It is now nearly 15,000 up from the 8,500 previously disclosed.”
Just after two months after Cuomo’s directive was put in place, nursing home deaths had already soared to over 9,000.
“The number — more than 9,000 by that point in June — was not public, and the governor’s most senior aides wanted to keep it that way,” the New York Times reported. “They rewrote the report to take it out, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.”
“The extraordinary intervention, which came just as Mr. Cuomo was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements, was the earliest act yet known in what critics have called a monthslong effort by the governor and his aides to obscure the full scope of nursing home deaths,” the Times added.
