Trump's Medicare leader says 'New York dropped the ball' putting COVID patients in nursing homes

As the nation continues grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration is now mandating that nursing home workers undergo regular COVID-19 testing.

"Testing will occur twice a week, weekly, or monthly, depending on local factors such as an individual facility’s risk for COVID-19 transmission," according to a White House press release. "Nursing homes will also be required to test residents and staff when there are new cases," according to the fact sheet.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma told Carrie Sheffield of Just the News that regular testing of nursing home staff members is now required by facilities that take Medicare or Medicaid funding.

"We want to make it very clear and some states really misinterpreted the guidelines," said Verma, who explained that individuals should not be placed into nursing home facilities that are not ready to care for them. It is important to make certain that people who test positive for the virus "can be appropriately isolated," she said. 

Verma said that there were "some states, New York in particular, where they were forced to take covid positive individuals. And so we're trying to do everything that we can to make it very, very clear that that should not happen under any circumstances."

Regarding New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Verma said that he "has been very complimentary of the president and all of his efforts, but it's very clear that New York dropped the ball when it came to nursing homes, forcing nursing homes to take patients that were covid positive is completely inappropriate, and it was against federal regulations and requirements."

So far there have been more than 5.8 million COVID-19 cases and more than 179,000 deaths in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University.