By Gabriella Borter
(Reuters) – New York Governor Cuomo on Monday criticized the federal government and other states for failing to take the COVID-19 crisis seriously after seeing the devastation it caused his state in the spring.
Cuomo said that states where cases are currently spiking, including Texas and Florida, followed the federal government’s lead in playing down the epidemic, which led them to reopen their economies too soon.
“This was the worst government blunder in modern history,” Cuomo said of the federal government’s response to the pandemic.
“It was a mistake to deny the reality that happened in New York,” he added.
New York’s statewide hospitalizations for COVID-19 fell to 536, Cuomo said, the lowest level since March.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
