by Kerry Dougherty
This is rich.
One of the worst governors in the country — Andrew Cuomo — announced yesterday that Virginians are not welcome in New York and neither are folks from 30 other states. Unless we quarantine and show a clean bill of health, that is.
He’s afraid we’ll infect New Yorkers with COVID-19.
Hilarious. Is there anyone left in New York who hasn’t been infected?
Someone needs to remind the governor that it was New Yorkers who spread the virus to the rest of the country. According to The New York Times:
New York City’s coronavirus outbreak grew so large by early March that the city became the primary source of new infections in the United States, new research reveals, as thousands of infected people traveled from the city and seeded outbreaks around the country.
The research indicates that a wave of infections swept from New York City through much of the country before the city began setting social distancing limits to stop the growth. That helped to fuel outbreaks in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and as far away as the West Coast.
Looks like Virginia made a mistake by not banning New Yorkers months ago. Who knows how many lives might have been saved.
So far, 32,520 have died from COVID-19 in the Empire State. A staggering figure.
Yet that hasn’t stopped Cuomo from taking an undeserved victory lap- – with Dr. Anthony Fauci on the sidelines, cheering — for his handling of the Covid-19 crisis.
Shoot, even CNN’s Jake Tapper called out Cuomo last week for his insane celebration.
“New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo seems to be on something of a victory tour congratulating the state and himself for defeating the virus,” Tapper began before pointing to the poster filled with “inside jokes” that Cuomo is selling.
“There are no illustrations, however, of the more than 32,000 dead New Yorkers, the highest death toll by far of any state. No rendering on that poster of the criticism that Governor Cuomo ignored warnings, no depiction of the study that he could have saved thousands of lives had he and Mayor De Blasio acted sooner, no painting of his rescinded order that nursing homes take all infected patients in,” the CNN anchor continued.
Tapper accused Cuomo of “revisionism” and “crowing,” which he insisted was “offending a lot of New Yorkers.”
Cuomo’s inexplicable order that required nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients led to the deaths of thousands of New York’s most vulnerable folks. At last count, more than 6,000 perished in New York nursing homes.
While Virginia is in the midst of an outbreak, it’s hard to determine the magnitude of the problem because the Old Dominion only began testing in earnest a little more than a month ago and we have no baseline for comparison. So far, there have been 2,048 deaths from the coronavirus in Virginia and 76,427 confirmed cases. Our death rate is 24 per 100,000 people. New York’s is 167.
Plus, it’s worth noting that Virginians successfully slowed the spread enough that — despite the rising numbers — there are almost 4,000 vacant hospital beds and 80% of ventilators are collecting dust.
At the same time that the infection rate was falling in New York, a new problem surfaced: New York City’s crime rate rose sharply and the city slashed $1 billion from the police department’s budget.
In a piece headlined “Shootings Soar 205% After New York Police Department Disbands Anti-Crime Unit,” The New York Post reports that the Big Apple is a dangerous place.
“Gun violence exploded across the city after the NYPD disbanded its anti-crime unit of plainclothes cops on June 15, with three times as many shootings in the last two weeks of the month over the same period in 2019, police stats show.
And the shocking rise in gunfire — to 116 incidents from 38 between June 15 and July 2, a 205 percent increase — meant scores more victims were hurt or killed by bullets this year over last year.
Gunshot injuries skyrocketed to 157 from 47 in 2019, a 238 percent increase.
With a total of 205 shootings during the month, it was the bloodiest June in 24 years — going back to 1996, when the NYPD logged 236 incidents, the department said.
News flash, Gov. Cuomo, Virginia is beautiful this time of year. And safe.
Why would we want to leave?
This column is republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited.
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