New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will receive an Emmy award next week for his coronavirus press briefings, the Emmy organization announced on Friday.
When the pandemic arrived in New York City and its surrounding environs, Cuomo organized daily press briefings on the state’s response to spiraling coronavirus infections and deaths. Cuomo’s popularity skyrocketed in New York as a result of the briefings, and state residents have consistently approved of the governor’s handling of the pandemic.
Cuomo “will receive this year’s International Emmy® Founders Award, in recognition of his leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world,” the International Emmys said in a statement on Friday.
“The Governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure,” International Academy President and CEO Bruce L. Paisner commented. The Founders Emmy is given to a recipient who “crosses cultural boundaries to touch our common humanity.”
The award comes after more New York residents have died of coronavirus than in any other state. Cuomo has faced criticism for an executive order in March forcing nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients, which some observers concluded may have worsened outbreaks among high-risk elderly residents.
Additionally, the New York Department of Health only records a “nursing home death” in cases where a resident dies of coronavirus in the nursing home itself, but not residents who die after being moved to a hospital. This has resulted in a likely undercount of deaths among nursing home residents.
Cuomo has dismissed allegations of mishandling coronavirus nursing home outbreaks as a right-wing smear, while the state health department released a report blaming nursing home staff and visitors for spreading coronavirus to the facilities.
An Ipsos poll released on October 21 showed that while New Yorkers generally approved Cuomo’s handling of coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes, while 67 percent of residents approve of the governor’s overall management of the pandemic.
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