Someone is going to have to explain how exactly the media are defining “under control” as it pertains to the coronavirus because it’s a phrase that appears to mean nothing.
Reuters over the weekend continued the campaign to rehabilitate Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s image by asserting, as other news outlets have laughably done before, that New York is in tip-top shape, especially compared to that Republican-led state Florida. (Ew!)
“The surge in Florida has continued as the state’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has repeatedly said he will not make mask-wearing mandatory and that schools must reopen in August,” Reuters reported on Sunday. “On the contrary, New York state has managed to get the virus under control, with stores and restaurants shuttered and the wearing of masks mandatory.”
Here’s what it looks like to “get the virus under control” in New York: There are more than 32,000 dead people in New York, far more than any other state and at a rate worse than any other location on Earth. Florida so far has less than 6,000 dead, and the Sunshine State actually has the larger population of the two. At the virus’s peak in New York back in mid-April, the state was averaging close to 1,000 deaths per day. In Florida, where new cases have been steadily falling for the past 10 days, the state has so far peaked at an average of 126 deaths per day.
It’s true that new cases have dramatically dropped since the virus’s heyday in New York, whereas they have since trended upward in Florida. But that’s not proof that New York got the virus “under control.” The virus appears to have simply run its course in New York. Having reached critical mass and having caused more than 32,000 deaths, it is now no longer spreading. With the number of new cases falling in Florida for the past two weeks, that may be what happened there as well — just without the ridiculous fatality rate of New York.
If Florida needs to go through what New York went through in order to see the virus “under control,” they might do well to take a pass.
