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Andrew Cuomo says he saved New York City from COVID-19. Fact check: He brought the Big Apple to its knees and came close to destroying it.
New Yorkers taken with Cuomo’s odious, I’m-your-hero oratory should remember how he screwed us over in 2020.
The previous governor, now aspiring mayor, has faced criticism for transferring 15,000 COVID patients from hospitals to nursing homes, resulting in unnecessary deaths. This decision is suspected to have been influenced by donations of over $1 million from the hospital industry to his re-election campaign in 2018.
Another detrimental action by Cuomo was imposing strict and rigid lockdown measures on various establishments in the city such as stores, restaurants, cinemas, theaters, concerts, museums, sports arenas, playgrounds, and zoos. These restrictions were enforced arbitrarily and vindictively, impacting the city’s life and economy significantly.
Harsher rules in city
Some regulations affected the rest of the state as well, but not like they did here, where they remained in force longer and more stringently.
Cuomo’s implementation of these restrictions seemed targeted at New Yorkers, as he falsely claimed that the city’s density posed a greater threat compared to other locations. Despite the inconvenience and hardship caused by the lockdown, he maintained that it was for the citizens’ own well-being.
In fact, he was intoxicated with gubernatorial authority, indifferent to the needs of free enterprise, and — most crucially — out to show former Mayor Bill de Blasio who the real sheriff in town was. Hint: It wasn’t the mayor.
After de Blasio jumped the gun on calling for school closures in April 2020, Cuomo never got over what he regarded as an effort to upstage him with a move that properly belonged to him — and he took it out on the rest of us.
Does Cuomo expect us to forget that indoor dining, crucial to the social fabric whether at McDonald’s or Le Bernardin, was banned until October 2020 — and then, at a ridiculous and unworkable 25% capacity, complete with temperature-taking and mask-wearing en route to the bathroom?
Offices, the heartbeat of the city’s economy, couldn’t reopen until June 2020, and then at 50% capacity. With nearly everything else in Midtown and the Wall Street area closed, and offices subject to wacky mask-and-distancing rules, was it any wonder employees chose to “work” from home?
The straitjackets remained long after Cuomo rescinded or diluted the rules around the rest of the state. I was amazed to find a full dining room at a Nassau County steakhouse, just a block over the city line, in early July 2020. Owners cheerfully ignored the 25% rule, knowing that customers’ common sense would override fiats from the imperial governor.
Cuomo didn’t let movie theaters in the Big Apple reopen until late February 2021 — four months after the rest of the state — and then at 25% capacity. Equally ridiculous, random restrictions included 33% capacity in museums and zoos, the last of which aren’t known for claustrophobic, virus-spreading indoor confines.
The damage done
Yes, the virus killed or contributed to the deaths of 45,218 New York City residents. An unimaginable 801 perished on a single hellish day — April 1, 2020.
But the threat of COVID spread was mostly over by May and all but nonexistent by the fall. The infection rate, which peaked at 60% in early April, fell to 1% just two months later. Vaccines in January 2021 reduced serious cases and deaths to near-zero.
Even so, the endless drumbeat of doom and gloom enabled lockdown-loving media coverage, especially in The New York Times, which repeatedly warned, “The virus is not done with us.”
Cuomo’s calculated overstatement of risk provided cover for teachers-union-driven school closures, costing a generation of mostly underprivileged kids a year of proper education.
Empty streets and subways provided safe harbor for criminals and psychotic “homeless.” The “work from home” trend took almost five years to finally stem. Permanently lost were thousands of stores, restaurants and small businesses that couldn’t afford to go without revenue.
They weren’t casualties of COVID, but of gubernatorial edicts to settle a score. And we are still paying the price.