New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a brilliant new plan to help sports stadiums reopen efficiently: Separate the vaccinated spectators from the unvaccinated.
Yankees and Mets fans who are fully inoculated against the coronavirus will be assigned to their own designated sections where everything will be completely reopened, Cuomo announced this week. Unvaccinated fans will have their own sections, which will be limited to 33% capacity with social distancing and mask requirements. These new rules will replace the previous state mandate that required attendees to show proof of a negative coronavirus test ahead of a game, and it will apply to other large outdoor event venues as well, such as concerts.
This de facto form of segregation is a bad idea for the same reason that national vaccine passports would be a terrible mistake. The state should not be able to force residents to show their papers (in this case, a vaccine card) so they can access what we’ve heretofore considered public accommodations. Every American, vaccinated or unvaccinated, has a right to return to a normal life. Any attempt to limit mobility in the aftermath of this pandemic is really just an attempt to redefine what a normal life should look like. Do you want the government to have that kind of power?
And really, do you want Cuomo to have that kind of power? This is the man under investigation for abusing his position, covering up a statewide scandal, and lying to the public about it repeatedly. He shouldn’t have any say at all about what you can and cannot do.
To be fair, it is nice to see Cuomo at least try to take the pandemic seriously, albeit a year too late. Perhaps if he had thought to separate the healthy from the at-risk this time last year, thousands of senior citizens who died in New York’s nursing homes would still be alive. Instead, he forced long-term care facilities to house and care for COVID-19-positive patients, exposing hundreds of other vulnerable residents to a virus that would cost many of them their lives.
Cuomo needs a good dose of self-awareness. He lost the moral authority to lecture unvaccinated people and restrict their day-to-day lives the moment he signed an executive order putting thousands of vulnerable elderly New Yorkers in harm’s way. And his administration’s many attempts to cover up and lie about that order’s effects have only confirmed his unfitness.
