'WE FAILED THE ELDERLY' ON COVID
Ex-FEMA chief rips NY, NJ on nurse-home disaster
New York state’s recently departed FEMA chief isn’t holding back on his way out the door.
In an exit interview with The Post, Tom Von Essen, who served as the New York regional director of the Federal Emergency Management and was city fire commissioner during the Sept. 11 attacks, slammed the nation’s early response to the coronavirus pandemic and the slow pace of vaccine distribution — calling New York’s nursing-home death toll its “biggest failure” in the crisis.
As FEMA’s regional director, Von Essen, 76, was a pivotal figure in getting medical manpower and personal protective equipment to New York and New Jersey when the pandemic hit the metropolitan area in the spring. He previously helped FEMA oversee Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria.
“I thought what happened in
New York in March, April and May and June would provide a learning lesson for the rest of the country. But it really wasn’t,” said Von Essen, who stepped down on Dec. 21.
“People didn’t take COVID seriously. People thought it was a city problem. They turned out to be wrong. The idiocy cost tens of thousands of deaths,” he said.
Von Essen declared that America’s political leadership failed the country — but praised FEMA officials, health-care workers and first responders for an “excellent” job.
“The politicians are nauseating. They’re malfeasant,” he said.
He credited President Trump for meeting his pledge to have a COVID-19 vaccine available by year’s end.
But Von Essen gave a failing grade to the pace of distribution of the vaccine by New York and other states — mirroring prior criticism leveled against Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio in recent days, with only a third of the Empire
State’s doses making their way into people’s arms as of last week.
Von Essen said time is of the essence because the vaccine could save tens of thousands of lives.
“This process obviously needs to be ramped up and should have been done already. Lots of excuses for us dropping the ball back [early last year], none now,” he said.
“The vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel. We’re all disappointed because everyone in government had so much time to prepare. But it
really hasn’t happened,” he said.
“We’re not doing a good job when you look at the total number of vaccinations. We thought we had 20 million people vaccinated by now. The number is 4 million.”
He said “80 to 90 percent” of doses sent to the state should have been distributed by now, not under 50 percent.
“It’s injecting a needle,” Von Essen said. “Be creative.”
For example, Von Essen said school nurses could be activated to administer the vaccine, and other bureaucratic rules in New York that limit the number of people who can administer the shot could be stripped away.
“We failed the elderly. We let the elderly down,” he said of “the inability” of New York and New Jersey to stop the disaster in nursing homes.
Though many critics have blamed the death toll of some 7,400 nursinghome residents on the Cuomo administration’s policy of forcing the facilities to accept COVID-positive patients from hospitals, Van Essen said he’d “leave that assessment to others.”
He nevertheless thinks Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy have done a good job handling the pandemic.
“There was a lot of public bickering between Cuomo and de Blasio, but I don’t think it affected our ability to help both when they needed it,” he said.
He noted the second surge of the virus this winter still poses a big challenge before most of the population has an opportunity to get vaccinated.
“I hope it does not get as ugly as the spring,” he said.