The Democratic challenger for New York’s 23rd Congressional District is calling out her opponent’s statements on how many times nursing home employees should be tested weekly for the coronavirus.

On Thursday, Mitrano said Gov. Andrew Cuomo is correct when it comes to mandating that nursing home employees get tested twice a week. Cuomo announced the new requirement May 10.

Tom Reed, R-Corning, during his weekly conference call with the regional media Wednesday, said its not feasible to put that kind of burden on nursing homes because there aren’t enough resources available to meet the governor’s mandate.

On Thursday, Tracy Mitrano, D-Penn Yan, said Reed is wrong to criticize the governor’s new guideline because protecting senior citizens, who are at high-risk, is important during the pandemic.

“We have to test in nursing homes,” she said. “This virus thrives in dense, trapped populations: prisons, meat packing plants, and nursing homes. It is significantly more fatal for the elderly — 20% vs. 2% in the general population.”

Mitrano said addressing nursing homes has a decisive effect on statistics. She said Tioga County had the lowest infection rate in the 23rd Congressional District until the coronavirus hit a nursing home. She added now there are 60 confirmed cases, 19 probable cases and Tioga County has gone “way up the list” of counties in the district.

“Reed aligns himself with the far right, who want to reopen, ignoring fact that Western New York is in a region with an abundance of cases and deaths due to nursing homes,” she said. “Fifty-five percent of the deaths in Erie County were in nursing homes. If you fix nursing homes, which is what the governor is trying to do, you get the statistics that get you what you want, which is to reopen.”

Mitrano said reopening Western New York too soon could put the district in a distressing situation because of the overall poor health of residents. For example, Chautauqua County ranks among the lowest of all counties in New York when it comes to health, including having the lowest ranking when it comes to length of life.

According to a report released in March 2019 by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Chautauqua County ranks 59 out of 62 counties in the state in the category of health outcomes.

“There are not enough resources in this district were we to experience an outbreak in proportions like a place like New York City, that can take care of the people who live here, because healthcare in rural areas has been so dramatically neglected.”

Mitrano said Reed should drop the politics and rhetoric during the current health care crisis.

“Lets work together to get healthy, people back to school and work and this economy in this country back on track,” she said.