Gov. Cuomo Doubles Down on ‘European’ Virus: ‘No One Knew It Was Coming From Europe’

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) doubled down on Wednesday on his assertion that the coronavirus “came from Europe,” telling reporters “no one knew” until recently.

“With this virus, we must stay alert, because we’re still learning,” Cuomo said at a daily briefing in Albany. “And what we thought we knew doesn’t always turn out to be true, OK. This virus has been ahead of us every step of the way in this country. When we first started with this virus, we were told it was coming from China, right? Wuhan province, it came from China, and it’s going to come from China, now to the United States. Turns out it didn’t come from China to the United States. It did in some parts of the country, but the East Coast, it turns out it came from Europe.”

Cuomo has been making headlines this month for claiming the coronavirus came to New York predominantly from European travelers, and even referred to it this week as the “European virus.” He has not made evidence for the claim clear but has said that more than 2 million Europeans came to New York through the John F. Kennedy International Airport as the virus began entering the state.

He has also received pushback for the claim from critics. “Does he realize the rest of the country will start calling it the New York virus if we’re just going by where it most recently came from?” New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz wrote on Twitter Monday.

At Tuesday’s press conference, Cuomo reiterated his belief that European travelers were largely responsible for transmitting the virus. “I talk to everyone all day long. In the beginning of this, nobody ever said it’s coming from Europe,” he said. “We had 2 million Europeans come to New York, New Jersey, the big airports, the international airport, JFK, and no one knew it was coming from Europe, because it had gone from China to Europe and it gets here from Europe. No one knew.”

New York had 350,582 reported cases of coronavirus as of Wednesday, accounting for 25 percent of the national total. The state reported 27,282 deaths related to the illness, or 27 percent of the national total.

Watch above via CNN.