New York governor gave family members special access to Covid tests, report says

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave family members a special access to state-administered Covid tests in the early days of the pandemic, a media report has said.

Cuomo, a Democrat, is already facing bipartisan calls to resign over accusations of sexual harassment or misconduct from at least eight women and disclosures that his administration under-reported nursing home deaths from the pandemic. The 63-year-old third-term governor has denied the allegations and repeatedly said he would not resign.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that a top state doctor made house calls to some of the governor`s family members or close associates, including his brother -- CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, to administer the tests. 

Chris tested positive early in the pandemic.

Also read | How Cuomo’s team tried to tarnish one of his accusers

"We should avoid insincere efforts to rewrite the past. In the early days of this pandemic, when there was a heavy emphasis on contact tracing, we were absolutely going above and beyond to get people testing," Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said in a statement emailed to Reuters in response to the Post article.

Those efforts included "in some instances going to people’s homes - and door to door in places like New Rochelle - to take samples from those believed to have been exposed to COVID in order to identify cases and prevent additional ones," the statement added.

Among those assisted, "were members of the general public, including legislators, reporters, state workers and their families who feared they had contracted the virus and had the capability to further spread it," Azzopardi said.

After the nursing home and sexual misconduct scandals broke, the network said its conflict-of-interest policy meant that Chris Cuomo could not report on the governor.

(with inputs)