NEW YORK — Gov. Andrew Cuomo slammed the Trump administration for "capitulating" on the coronavirus outbreak.
"They surrendered without firing a shot," he said during a Sunday call with reporters. "It was the great American surrender.
"Americans don't surrender and they didn't even put up a fight," Cuomo added.
He was taking White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to task for comments earlier Sunday saying, "We're not going to control the pandemic."
Asked why that was the case on CNN, Meadows said, "Because it's a contagious virus."
He went on to call for "proper mitigation factors to make sure people don't die."
Cuomo called the remarks "very telling."
"It basically admitted and encapsulated the way they've handled COVID from the start," the governor said. "They have believed from the beginning that they can't control the virus."
He added that New York has "won" against coronavirus.
"What we learned in New York was, if you put up a fight you will have won. Because New York won," Cuomo said. "Other states won, also."
The COVID positivity rate in so-called "micro-clusters" that have had renewed outbreaks was 3.18% as of Saturday, according to Cuomo. The statewide COVID positivity rate was 1.3%.
Twelve New Yorkers died of COVID on Saturday, bringing the state's death toll to 25,730.
