New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is lucky he’s a Democrat. If he weren’t, then no amount of soothing press conferences would distract the press from repeating over and over again that his state alone counts for more than a quarter of the coronavirus-related deaths in this country.
If we saw numbers like that in Florida or Texas, we would never hear the end of how a Republican governor botched the response to the healthcare crisis because his administration was woefully unprepared and that it resulted in the deaths of 31,000 people — people of color hardest hit.
But no, all we’ve heard about lately is how New York’s new case numbers have plummeted — hooray for Cuomo! — while other states that were quicker to reopen their economies are now seeing their infections rise, albeit not to New York’s levels. (Boo, Republicans!)
New York Times’s liberal columnist Paul Krugman wrote merrily last week that infections “have fallen to a quite low level in the New York area.” But then, he said that “the really bad news is coming from Republican-controlled states, especially Arizona, Florida and Texas, which rushed to reopen and, while some are now pausing, haven’t reversed course.”
Of course there are more cases. Testing is more widely available now than it was before. And yes, the infection likely spread because people once again started going to restaurants, bars, and stores (and protests) where they came into close contact with others.
More coronavirus infections certainly mean more coronavirus deaths because that’s what happens with a virus for which there is no proven cure.
But let’s not pretend that there is any comparison whatsoever between the current increase in cases to the absolute horror that is New York, coming up on 32,000 coronavirus-related deaths. The next closest state is neighboring New Jersey, with only half as many dead but (for the first time as of recently) a higher number per capita. Congratulations, New Jersey — you’re No. 1!
New York is currently at 1,618 coronavirus deaths per million people.
Florida, under wicked Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is at just 160 deaths per million — one-tenth as many.
In Arizona, under Republican Doug Ducey, it’s 218 per million.
In Texas, under Republican Greg Abbott, it’s 83 per million.
Who looks at those numbers and thinks, “Wow, Andrew Cuomo handled things relatively well”?
CNN’s Chris Cuomo tweeted last week that New York was “doing way better than what we see elsewhere” and that there was “no way” that would be the case if not for the governor. I get that they’re brothers, but really?
New York’s death toll is surely as high as it is at least in some part due to Cuomo’s unbelievable decision to prevent nursing homes from refusing COVID-19 patients, exposing the most at-risk group of people to a deadly disease.
In an interview Sunday on NBC, the governor defended the decision by pointing out that only 21% of coronavirus-related deaths in New York were attributed to nursing home patients, while the percentage in other states was far higher. That’s an unusual defense considering it only means that while a lot of people died in New York nursing homes, a whole lot more died outside of nursing home. For other states, it only means that the most severe cases of the virus were concentrated in nursing homes. Hmm, which state would you rather be in?
The rehabilitation of New York as some kind of success story under the leadership of Cuomo, a Democrat, is a lie.
