Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday it was “reprehensible” and “grossly negligent” to allow UK travelers to fly to JFK airport without being tested despite a new contagious coronavirus mutation shutting down London.
“Right now, this variant in the UK gets on a plane and flies to JFK,” Cuomo told reporters on Sunday about the mutation, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned it could be 70 percent more transmissible.
“Right now. Today,” the governor stressed, urging the feds to impose coronavirus tests on UK travelers as a “minimum,” if not an absolute ban.
“Literally, six flights a day. And only one person is needed, ”he said of the possible seed for the spread of the new strain.
So far, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Bulgaria have announced strict bans or restrictions on UK travelers since Johnson announced the closure of London on Saturday.
At least 120 countries also make sure UK travelers get a negative coronavirus test before letting them in, said Cuomo, who said Johnson’s sudden closure so close to Christmas was a clear signal. of how “seemingly dangerous” the new mutation has shown.
“We have about six daily flights from the UK. And we have done absolutely nothing, ”he said.
“For me, that’s reprehensible, because that’s what happens in the spring,” he said, blaming the savage spread of New York’s contagion on travelers from Europe, rather than directly from the initial epicenter of Wuhan, China.
Some “120 countries require testing, we don’t. Other European countries have banned, we have not. And today this variant is to get on a plane and land JFK “, Cuomo repeated.
“The port authority has no authority to ban passengers or health monitors. It’s federal, ”he said.
“Doing nothing is negligent. It’s totally negligent, ”he smoked.
“How many times in your life do you have to make the same mistake before you learn?”
Cuomo stressed that so far “we have no evidence” that the new strain has arrived in the United States, saying it is a fear that “kept me alert last night.”
He also feared that there was only one “working assumption” that coronavirus vaccines would be effective against the new strain, saying: “Experts have been so wrong … I take everything with a grain of salt, to say- you the truth. ”
His statement came shortly after Admiral Brett Giroir, the U.S. deputy secretary of health, insisted there was no other reason to do anything but “keep watching” the news about the spread in the UK.
“I don’t think there is any cause for alarm at the moment,” Giroir told George Stephanopoulos ABC “This Week.”
“Viruses mutate. We have seen about 4,000 different mutations among this virus. There is no indication that the mutation they are talking about right now is overtaking England, “he insisted, saying it only accounted for” 20% of cases in a county. “
“And, very importantly, we still haven’t seen any mutation that would make her evade the vaccine,” he said, adding that the new vaccines “should continue to work very solidly against all of these strains.”
On Saturday, British leader Johnson said the new variant of the virus, which moves rapidly, is 70 per cent more transmissible, accusing it of more than 60 per cent of new infections in London and surrounding areas.
He The World Health Organization has tweeted on Saturday afternoon he was “in close contact with UK officials on the new variant of the # COVID19 virus” and pledged to update governments and the public as he learns.
Britain has recorded more than 67,500 deaths in the pandemic, the second highest confirmed toll in Europe after Italy, with more than 2 million confirmed cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
With publishing cables