Posted on 03/25/2020 8:19:42 AM PDT by shortstop
It turns out Cuomo was wrong.
If his numbers yesterday are correct, if the graph of New York coronavirus cases and deaths has juked unexpectedly upward, then he was wrong.
Tragically, fatally wrong.
And New York City and the nation will probably suffer unimaginably as a result.
If the numbers are correct, and if social distancing and the flatten-the-curve approach are correct, then Cuomo should have ordered his New York Pause some three weeks earlier. And he should have embraced – instead of killed – Mayor Bill de Blasio’s consideration of a complete shutdown of New York City.
But he didn’t. And as a result, America’s largest city has become a new ground zero, to such an extent that a presidential advisor has recommended all people leaving the city self-quarantine for 14 days, to reduce the likelihood of taking the disease with them across the face of the nation.The dramatic uptick in coronavirus numbers released Tuesday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo seems to indicate that early New York efforts to control the disease were almost worse than ineffective. The pattern of spread is not as bad as the projections of what would happen if nothing was done to fight the disease – they are worse.
Which means that the governor can hold a good press conference, but he’s not that good at protecting his state and its largest city.
That conclusion, of course, presumes that what we’re being told about the coronavirus is accurate, that our various projections of spread and theories of containment are right. Public health and political leaders have defined the coronavirus pandemic in America as a matter of keeping the number of critical patients below the number of available intensive-care hospital beds, and of achieving that – in the absence of a vaccine – by social distancing arrived at through a combination of personal actions and government-ordered social shutdowns.
It is a logical argument.
But the irony of coronavirus social restrictions is that we are being asked to trust politicians and public health officials who created this dilemma by failing to adequately prepare our medical system for the foreseeable eventuality of a respiratory epidemic.
We are being asked to accept the flatten-the-curve paradigm by the same medical and government people – and the same governor – whose paradigm of hospital preparation created the problem which is currently crippling our country, and which may fundamentally weaken our personal and national finances for years to come.
Cuomo in 2015 was advised he was 16,000 respirators short of what he would need in the event of an epidemic. He was told he had one-ninth of the number he needed. But instead of buying more, as he was advised, he chose to commission a panel to create a rubric for – in the event of having more patients than respirators – deciding who would be denied a respirator in the case of an emergency.
That means he decided that, in the event of an epidemic, eight-ninths of critically ill New Yorkers would have to die.
That’s the Matilda’s Law that matters.
And now, as the respirator chickens are coming home to roost, and New Yorkers are dying by the dozens daily, Cuomo’s plan is unraveling. Preparations were based on a worst-case scenario of 110,000 critically ill patients at the epidemic’s peak, and the governor now believes it will be 140,000. And instead of that peak arriving in 45 days, it will be here in 14 or 21. That makes the peak much higher and much sooner than the governor anticipated, and that change came about after the implementation of three weeks of steady gubernatorial control.
He’s got great confidence, and he gives nice psychological counseling, but it’s not working.
At the root is humanity’s consistent weakness at predicting the future. People can make nice arguments and show pretty charts and graphs, but nobody knows what tomorrow brings. And nobody knows beforehand if universally accepted theories are right.
That left Cuomo without a crystal ball, and relying completely upon the social distancing flatten-the-curve approach. And Tuesday showed that thus far that hasn’t worked.
At least not yet. If flatten-the-curve is right and it can be achieved by social distancing, then after another two or three weeks – when the effects of the New York Pause may have kicked in – things should be expected to improve. If all the hypotheticals line up, there should be a decline in the rate of growth of new cases and deaths – not that the peak has been reached, but that the pause has started to choke off the spread.
But, again, humans aren’t good at predicting the future.
None of this should be discouraging, or take anybody by surprise. Failure is often part of the process of success. Many wars have been won by generals who lost battles. The Union Army lost Bull Run, but won Appomattox. America lost at Pearl Harbor, but won at Nagasaki.
The fight against this pandemic is a journey of discovery, and failure can teach you as much as success.
Andrew Cuomo has lost the opening round of the fight against the coronavirus, but hopefully can learn from that to help him fare better in the rounds that still lie ahead of us.
“He’s got executive style hair, we think it will turn silver” - Dilbert
Here’s the thing. They have to balance saving lives (or trying to) and bankrupti g the country/world. Bankrupting everyone will also kill them in the long run. It is a balancing act and nobody knows the “perfect” answer. Heaven help us all.
I watched him last night ranting on about NY needing 26,000 ventilators for their 25,000 cases of the virus. Since only about 10 percent or less of cases require hospitalization why does he think he needs 26,000 ventilators RIGHT NOW.
He reminded me of your typical leftist loon issuing his demands for this and demands for that.
Not quite as much as the last flu season, but at least we could get toilet paper then.
Gee. Could the largest Chinese population in the country of 1.6 million in NYC have something to do with the increase since half of them went to China in January for the New Year and returned to NYC in February?? Sarc
I think Trump should announce that he’s sending Mike Pence to NY for first hand analysis on how Trump can help Cuomo.
Was he looking in the mirror yesterday when he SHOUTED "You pick which 16,000 people won't get a ventilator"?
Cuomo is fearmongering ... the actual hospitalization rate in NY is now 0.2% and that’s before the cure is now being made widely available.
Clearly shifting the blame for HIS failure and trying to blame others. Libs are excellent at that. Someone needs to tell him that HE runs NY with his legislator, not the Fed. These lefties have cried "Trump is not a monarch" for 3 years, now they demand that he become a monarch and run their states.
It’s fun, but really not fair to compare NYC to average expectations. People are jammed together and have only public transportation. Single family dwellings and cars make social distancing easy for non-city dwellers. If you live in an apartment building with central air conditioning and don’t own a car, you are pretty much screwed. Big cities are going to get it a whole lot worse than the rest of us. As with politics, it’s an urban vs rural thing. I won’t cut Cuomo or DeBlasio any slack for being smug Democrats, but I also won’t blame them for not being able to control a virus in a free society crowded into a city.
Anyone who “left” NYC in the last couple of days should be prosecuted when this is all over.
Today he wants 40,000 respirators. FOX and CNN shoves a camera and mic at him every time he passes gas especially with his criticism of Trump. He has failed his state and is trying to tell the rest of us what to do. He is dumping NYC people to other parts of NY as well as to other parts of America.
He has become the democrats great white hope for president and they are putting him in the forefront instead of Biden.
Steven W. wrote:
“Cuomo is fearmongering ... the actual hospitalization rate in NY is now 0.2% and that’s before the cure is now being made widely available.”
Good point.
Old predictions might not take into account new actions, such as the administration of hydroxychloroquine + azithromax .
If enough Senior Citizens die as a result of his inaction, he can then take credit for Saving the Bankrupt Social Security system by reducing the number of beneficiaries.
I really don’t think this virus can be spread through HVAC systems. Measles can but it has an Ro of 12 or so.
He is an arrogant spitefull scumbag and the mayor is an FN idiot dolt. The scumbag media in NY ABC,NBC CBS are creating hysteria to compliment these dirt bags who I’m sure are working in unison with the other rat gov and mayors in these sanctuary states and cities to help kill the economy. Time is the tipping point, the longer they can keep this going by pumping the numbers and keeping the hysteria high with the help of the media they can hopeful tank the economy
a presidential advisor has recommended all people leaving the city self-quarantine for 14 days
**************
Fat chance of that. Most New Yorkers are just not going to do that.
I thought that was a very disrespectful and petty thing to publicly say to the president. No one person has all the answers right now. This tone from your Governor only divides people in a partisan way. Not helpful to anyone right now.
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