A conservative legal aid group has sued the state of New York for prioritizing COVID-19 treatments by race – and putting white people last.
America First Legal, founded by former President Donald Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller, sued the state health department on Sunday, after waiting two weeks for officials to revise the guidelines, per the group’s request.
“New York’s racist COVID decrees dispense life-saving medicine based on the race or ethnic background of the patient. New York is deciding questions of life and death based on a New Yorker’s ancestry,” Miller said in a statement.
“This is outrageously illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, and tyrannical. And that is why we are suing the state.”
The guidelines for administering monoclonal antibody treatments said doctors “should prioritize patients eligible for treatment based on their level of risk for progressing to severe COVID-19.”
The state announced that the priorities for monoclonals would be those with compromised immune systems, followed by the elderly, those with greater risk factors and the time lapsed since the person’s virus vaccine.
But in the footnotes to the policy, the health department added, “Non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor, as longstanding systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19.”
Trump, during a rally Sunday in Phoenix, picked up on the issue, saying, “The left is now rationing life-saving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating … white people to determine who lives and who dies.”
“If you’re white, you don’t get the vaccine, or if you’re white, you don’t get therapeutics,” he added. “In New York state, if you’re white, you have to go to the back of the line to get medical health.”
“I am serving as the plaintiff in this case because whether or not medical treatment should be provided should not be decided by the color of someone’s skin. I call on New Yorkers of all races and ethnicities to unite against these discriminatory government guidelines,” Bill Jacobson, the Plaintiff in the case said.
The Daily Mail reported last week that Miller’s group is weighing lawsuits against the health departments in Minnesota and Utah on the same grounds.
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