New York coronavirus testing sites were told to prioritize people in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's inner circle, who were 'treated like royalty,' report says

• Gov. Cuomo's friends and family reportedly got preferential COVID-19 testing early in the pandemic.
• The Washington Post spoke to seven sources who explained how the priority system worked.
• "Inner circle" members had their samples rushed to a lab by a state trooper and got faster results.

New details are coming to light about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's friends and family receiving special treatment early in the coronavirus pandemic, when tests were scarce and took a long time for the public.

Sources told The Washington Post that people in the governor's "inner circle" had their samples rushed by state troopers to the lab, where they were put on the top of the pile, and received their results in a matter of hours, while many other people endured weeklong waits.

"There is no reason why state testing teams should have been diverted to these people," a person with knowledge of the priority list told The Post.

A nurse described the frenzy late last spring when leaders at a testing site told workers that Cuomo's extended family members were arriving.

"I remember them being like, 'They're coming, they're coming,'" the nurse said. "And they would say, 'Have the state trooper ready … have it ready to go to Wadsworth,'" the nurse added, referring to a state lab.

"There was a lot of anxiety over those samples getting to the right place," the nurse said.

"They were treated like royalty," the nurse added. "I didn't understand why they were able to jump the line."

Among those who received this kind of special treatment was the clothing and footwear designer Kenneth Cole, who is married to the governor's sister Maria, one nurse told The Post.

Sources told The Post that Eleanor Adams, a Department of Health physician, was repeatedly sent to the Hamptons, about 90 miles east of New York City, to test the governor's brother, the CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, who announced last March that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

These visits to Chris Cuomo's house sometimes lasted hours at a time when Adams was in charge of coordinating testing for high-risk places like nursing homes, two people familiar with the visits told The Post.

Cuomo's administration has denied that the governor secured priority treatment for his friends and family.

"There was no 'VIP' program as the Washington Post describes - when priority was given, it was to nurses, guardsmen, state workers and other government officials central to the pandemic response and those they were in direct contact with, as well as individuals believed to have been exposed to COVID who had the capability to spread it further and impact vital operations," a spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, told The Post.

Azzopardi said that any priority system "was built by those in charge of running the sites and the Governor had no knowledge that tests were being prioritized at those sites."

But a nurse's account seemed to contradict this denial. "We would always hear, 'This is coming from the governor's chamber,'" the nurse told The Post.

The governor's office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Tuesday morning.

While many regarded him as a hero for helping to lead New York through the worst of the outbreak last year, Cuomo has found himself at the center of multiple scandals, with members of his own party calling for his resignation.

In addition to the reports that his friends and family received preferential treatment during the pandemic, Cuomo is facing multiple accusations of sexual misconduct and a federal investigation into whether his office deliberately undercounted New York's nursing-home COVID-19 deaths.