Governor Cuomo is failing to protect New Yorkers from Covid. That’s a Trump-sized problem

It’s important we hold every politician to account during this pandemic. Much has been said of former president Trump’s mistakes; relatively little has been said about the increasingly dangerous calls being made by the governor of New York

El gobernador de Nueva York, Andrew Cuomo, pronuncia su discurso sobre el estado del estado virtualmente desde la Sala de Guerra en el Capitolio del estado en Albany, Nueva York (REUTERS)

American deaths from the pandemic — 443,000 and rising — hover between the 418,500 in the Second World War and an estimated 620,000 in the US Civil War.

By spring, the death toll could exceed the latter — the bloodiest conflict in American history — and become our single largest conflagration in over two centuries.

Let’s be blunt: The pandemic in America is a humanitarian catastrophe of monumental proportions and further proof US infrastructure and society are in third-world disrepair.

In his insurrection-inciting farewell tour, the former president claimed falsely to be the first modern president to not start a new war. The statement is untrue. The Trump administration’s pandemic neglect effectively waged a war on the American people.

What our government did to us this past year — the denial of science, the refusal to rally the American people to stop the spread, and the failure to provide PPP and now vaccines — is Vietnam. And those Americans who have refused to keep their neighbors safe by social distancing and mask wearing are disloyal collaborators.

If the Biden administration does not soon demonstrate its aptitude and develop a state-of-the-art national Vaccination Progress Administration, the long death spiral will continue. Amid the explosion of new disease variants feared to resist the year-old vaccines, restoring American health security will be the defining test of this administration, and where the buck must stop.

The first order of business is vaccinations, whose production and distribution have stalled. NYU ethicist Dr Arthur Caplan recently told The New York Times that those who are offered the vaccine but feel they should refuse so someone else more needy can take their place have a moral responsibility not to do so. “If they call you to get vaccinated, you should go,” he implored.

This is especially the case in New York, where restrictive eligibility requirements have hindered a robust statewide response and spoiled vaccines. As John Hopkins University's Dr Amesh Adalja told NPR, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s threats of stringent criminal penalties sent the wrong signal from the outset.  "If people are dogmatically sticking to these priority groups,” Adalja said, “I think that's the wrong approach.” Why would vaccine makers distribute directly to New York, as Cuomo has lobbied, after vials went unused and trashed?

In the past week, Cuomo, like Trump, publicly questioned the veracity of scientific expertise after sidelining disease control experts in the deployment of the state’s vaccination plan. The vaccination program in New York continues to exclude immunocompromised people.

This is the final straw in the governor’s terrible, horrible, no-good pandemic response. Throughout the pandemic, it has felt like Cuomo wants to "play" commando, take no responsibility, and learn nothing, in a very Trumpian way.

He blamed the media and experts after his own refusal to act boldly when international cases documented asymptomatic transmission. After failing to close the Port Authority transportation hubs while we were witnessing the death trails from China and Italy, now Cuomo wants to reopen indoor dining at restaurants without controlling the new variants. And after a ruinous death toll last year, his daily briefings stopped the bleeding but not the disease. His cluster mitigation strategy has largely failed.

New York is realizing Cuomo is incompetent, and we conscientious New Yorkers need wait no longer for permission to oppose these failures. 

The American people never got to punish those who committed the policy atrocity of Vietnam. Not only should Trump be held accountable for his most egregious pandemic neglect, but we must oppose any and all politicians who cannot or will not protect our health.