We've been writing about Gov. Andrew Cuomo's shamelessness in covering up and denying his administration's COVID failures for weeks, but his new self-congratulatory poster -- now available for sale -- is truly next level stuff. CNN anchor Jake Tapper could hardly believe what he was seeing, ripping apart the governor's wildly misplaced victory lap in a series of tweets and a blunt on-air segment. I wonder if a certain primetime host at the network happened to catch this clip:
Bravo @jaketapper and @drsanjaygupta for BLASTING @NYGovCuomo for his terrible #COVID response pic.twitter.com/0JA5m9Dc8a
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) July 14, 2020
NY state has lost more than 32,000 lives to COVID-19. So while it's great that the numbers have gone down, it's perplexing to see crowing, Cuomo going on Fallon, etc. No other state has lost as many lives, not even close. New Jersey is next with 17,000+https://t.co/aIphqXdWYz
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 14, 2020
4/ There have been institutional failures of government from the White House on down. Empirically New York is one of the biggest failures in the U.S. From May:https://t.co/osWSVqrxiX
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 14, 2020
6/ There are many New York citizens put off by the crowing and the poster sales.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 14, 2020
It's great that the number have gone down, and I hope to God they stay there.
But New York's leaders were late and made many mistakes; it's been an absolute tragedy.
Rich Lowry observes, "even if you are [a] partisan Democrat, even if you are alarmed by developments in Florida, Texas, and Arizona, even if you oppose re-opening, there is zero case to be made for Andrew Cuomo as the great conquering hero of COVID." Cuomo is trying to will a heroic narrative into existence, and his own incompetence out of existence, and the media has far too often been complicit. From David Harsanyi's latest column:
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By any standard, the New York tristate area’s numbers are the worst in the country. By most measures, the numbers are some of the worst in the world. As the New York Times noted in May, New York City seeded the wave of outbreaks across the nation. Some of the carnage was likely unavoidable, but we can attribute the high number of nursing-home deaths, at the very least, to Cuomo’s ineptitude. Yet, even as his state was failing to meet its most serious challenge since 9/11 — it wasn’t until May 6 that cleaners began disinfecting the subway system, for example — Cuomo was busy taking softball questions on national cable news from his obsequious brother, Chris. On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon marveled at how “smart” and “honest” Cuomo was as the two discussed the governor’s global popularity and “Cuomosexual fans.” For those who tell you the media don’t matter, Cuomo now has among the highest approval ratings of any governor in the nation, almost all of whom have governed far more capably. As I write this, the coronavirus death toll in New York stands at 166 people per 100,000 (even if we exclude New York City, the rate is 78.5 per 100,000), while it is still only 30 per in Arizona, 20 per in Florida, 17.7 in California, and 11.1 in Texas.
It's unclear how the spiking trajectories of case and hospitalizations (and rising death totals) in sun belt states will ultimately play out, but this is an interesting point:
Interesting chart on hospitalization when you think back to the ubiquitous "bend the curve" charts back in Mar/Apr
— Jeff Dobbs (@jeffdobbs) July 13, 2020
The assumption back then was there was always going to be a bunch of cases, but we needed to spread them out/delay them to give hospitals a chance to prepare pic.twitter.com/M2UJiRuv5P
On the left is NY's COVID-19 Curve.
— (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) July 14, 2020
Does it look familiar? It should.
It's exactly the curve that every health expert said we should desperately seek to avoid.
That's exactly what the image on the right was meant to convey. The states spiking now are the second curve. pic.twitter.com/EU9tRoLy4v
Hopefully the wave now hitting places like Southern California, Arizona, etc. will surge, but on a longer and flatter curve than New York's disastrous, monumental, very deadly initial spike. That was the whole idea behind 'flattening the curve.' I'll leave you with this round-up of some good Coronavirus-related news, as well as this optimism-generating update on a leading vaccine candidate:
Re AP report on a corona vaccine showing promising results,it is referencing full Moderna results from Phase I trials just released
— Alicia Smith (@Alicia_Smith19) July 14, 2020
Report says robust immune response was detected in all 45 test subjects.Phase 2 trials are ongoing, phase 3 starts July 27 https://t.co/x9ZyfzBLb1
All 45 patients produced neutralizing antibodies, which scientists believe is important for building immunity and provided more promising data that the vaccine may give some protection against the coronavirus. In the trial, each participant received a 25, 100 or 250 microgram dose, with 15 people in each dose group. Participants received two doses of the potential vaccine. After two vaccinations, the vaccine elicited a “robust” immune response in all participants in all dose cohorts, Moderna said. The company said the levels of neutralizing antibodies in patients in the high dose group were fourfold higher than in recovered Covid-19 patients.
Fingers crossed that 'Operation Warp Speed' will continue to deliver promising results on an accellerated timeline.
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