MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-08-22 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] The sumartion of Cuomo's death toll added to
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reason.com
Andrew Cuomo's Coronavirus Response Has Been a Failure
Billy Binion
7-9 minutes
If you're wondering how New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sees his state's
response to COVID-19, check out the pandemic poster he recently
unveiled. In it, the coronavirus is a rocky summit that New Yorkers
scaled with "the power of we," bolstered by additional assistance from
health care workers, essential workers, out-of-state volunteers, and his
daughters, Cara, Mariah, and Michaela. (The family dog, Captain, stands
by for moral support.) Washed ashore is a cruise ship besieged by an
octopus, which we can assume is also, in some sense, the coronavirus.
"WINDS OF FEAR" blow around while President Donald Trump sits lazily on
a half moon crescent. Underneath, a man dangles precariously from
"Boyfriend Cliff," perhaps an homage to quarantine relationships gone
astray, maybe a more pointed jab at daughter Mariah's boyfriend, Tellef
Lundevall. (Sorry, Tellef!) But it's not all doom and gloom: Atop the
mountain is a rainbow, studded with a "Love Wins" banner, presumably a
shout-out to the gays.
"Forget the politics," the poster reads, in a quote attributed to Cuomo.
"Get smart!"
The Democratic governor has been the subject of several fawning media
interviews over the course of the last few months, many of them
conducted by his own brother, CNN's Chris Cuomo, with whom he's enjoyed
a string of scrutiny-free conversations. This past Monday he appeared on
Jimmy Fallon's first night back at NBC's 30 Rock Studios for a
lighthearted back-and-forth; Fallon praised how "honest" and "smart"
Cuomo is. "We're just worried the infections are going to come from the
other states now, back to New York, and that would be a tragedy," Cuomo
said, lauding New Yorkers for "taming the beast."
Passing the buck to other states is a savvy political move. But it
obscures Cuomo's own response to COVID-19. As of today, New York has
seen more than 32,000 of its residents die from the disease. That's more
than seven times the deaths in Florida, about nine times the deaths in
Texas, and more than four times the deaths in California. It dwarfs the
totals in many European countries, and it nips at Italy's heels. Of the
state's total, more than 22,000 deaths came from New York City. Compare
that to America's other densely populated metropolitan areas: Los
Angeles has recorded under 4,000 deaths, Boston has just over 1,000,
Miami is at 1,202, D.C. has 571, Houston comes in at 491, and San
Francisco has logged 50.
Cuomo certainly isn't to blame for all of the state's troubles. Plenty
of politicians performed poorly, from President Donald Trump down to New
York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and some factors were outside any official's
control. But the governor did plenty wrong.
Let's start with his most egregious misstep. In late March, when
COVID-19 measures were still in their nascent stages, not much was known
about the virus. One thing that was known, though, was that the elderly
were significantly more at risk to die should they contract it. Yet
Cuomo issued a mandate requiring nursing homes to accept residents who
had tested positive for COVID-19, including those who were still at risk
for spreading the disease to others. Since then, around 6,500 people in
those facilities—about 6.5 percent of the state's nursing home
population—have died of COVID-19. That's more than any other state's
total death toll, save for California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Illinois, and Massachusetts.* Cuomo has declined to share which nursing
homes were affected. The directive was not reversed until May 10.
Earlier in March, the governor adopted a blasé attitude about the virus.
"This isn't our first rodeo," he said at a March 2 press conference,
after the state's first known case was announced. "We should relax." The
governor assured everyone that he was implementing a robust contact
tracing program that would track down everyone on the patient's flight
from Iran. That never happened.
Once the outbreaks became more widespread, hospitals across the country
began depending on their state governments for oxygen supplies.
(Remember that, at the start of these lockdowns, the initial goal was to
stem the spread such that hospitals and the emergency stockpiles weren't
overwhelmed.) An over-reliance on Cuomo proved to be a fatal mistake.
According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal, many
ventilators sent from the state and city, as well as some from the
federal government, were old and faulty, and many patients died on them.
A spokeswoman for NYC Health + Hospitals told the Journal that many such
machines "were not 'ready to go' when they came" and often required
additional maintenance. Several health care workers claim that patients
assigned those ventilators often worsened with collapsed lungs or
similar complications as the machines were not able to provide proper
support.
What's more, Cuomo's near-exclusive focus on ventilators neglected to
address other hospital needs, such as the demand for supplemental oxygen
and oxygen monitors. (Note that the market would have been able to step
in here: A spokeswoman for Airgas said in an interview with the Journal
that, though the company saw increased demand, it was never unable to
fulfill a request for oxygen.) The lack of vital-signs equipment proved
detrimental as well. Health care workers detailed stories of patients
pulling off their oxygen masks while alone. Without monitors, they died.
Meanwhile, Cuomo got drawn into a public power struggle with de Blasio.
The mayor announced a city-wide shelter-in-place on March 17; Cuomo
squashed that on March 18; then Cuomo issued his own stay-at-home order
on March 20. Something similar happened when de Blasio announced that
the city's schools would remain shuttered through the academic year:
Cuomo declared that only he had that authority and described de Blasio's
order as the mayor's "opinion." (New York City almost always makes its
own decisions about school closures.)
Whatever you think about either of these policies, the uncertainty
engendered by the Cuomo–de Blasio feud did no one any good. A "truly
effective leader," Anthony Fisher wrote at Insider, "would work this all
out behind the scenes and not in front of an exceptionally anxious
public in need of clear guidance on how they're allowed to live their
lives during a crisis with no end in sight." And that back-and-forth may
have had consequences beyond prompting confusion. The Journal reports
that patients in New York City were often transferred between hospitals
without the relevant medical and treatment information, even when those
patients were not in stable condition. The city blames the state and the
state blames the city.
But mixed messaging defined Cuomo's initial response to COVID-19, which
teetered between cavalier and dismissive. Though he's said he wishes he
"blew the bugle" sooner, he has spent considerably more time blaming the
press, the experts, and the president.
New York's crisis moment has passed for now, with the curve flattened
and daily deaths bottoming out. De Blasio celebrated a milestone on
Tuesday, announcing that, for the first time in months, New York City
went a full 24 hours without registering a single death from COVID-19.
That's good news. But if the government's response hadn't been so
incompetent, that landmark may have come a lot earlier.
"Tell the People the Truth and They Will Do the Right Thing," the
pandemic poster reads, captioned above a cartoon image of Cuomo. If only
he took that advice.
CORRECTION: The original version of this article understated the number
of states with total death tolls higher than New York's nursing home
death toll
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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