New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed confusion over why some were upset to see him at the gym a day after announcing that public venues would be closing to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.
De Blasio, a failed 2020 presidential candidate, announced that the city would be shutting down restaurants, bars, and gyms on Monday and urged people not to go to those public spaces to combat potential exposure, but that did not stop him from going to the YMCA that morning for one last workout. A number of people expressed their frustration with the mayor, seeing his actions as an implicit double standard.
He addressed the backlash during a Tuesday morning appearance on CNN saying in part, “I don’t get it, but we’ll move on with our lives. The gyms are all closed now.”
“No, everyone is going to have to make sacrifice[s],” the mayor added. “But as our health commissioner said yesterday, people still in new ways are going to have to get exercise. Whatever scenario, we’re going to tell people how to stay healthy. It may be a walk, it may be a jog, but obviously socially distanced. Until and unless we get to the point of literally ordering everyone indoors.”
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De Blasio previously defended his trip to the gym at a press conference on Monday, arguing that “there was almost no one there” and noting that he wasn’t able to exercise over the weekend as a result of the rigors of dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.
Earlier in the day, de Blasio’s spokeswoman released a statement explaining, “The YMCA has been a huge part of his and his family’s life, like it has been for a lot of New Yorkers. It’s clear that’s about to change, and, before that, the mayor wanted to visit a place that keeps him grounded one last time.”
New York has been one of the hardest hit states in the United States during the coronavirus outbreak. There have been 967 confirmed coronavirus diagnoses in the state which have resulted in 10 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
