Trump’s theory, and that of many Republican governors, according to Cuomo, was the following: “We can quickly reopen and we can handle the virus because it will disappear or we will have a vaccine.”
Cuomo’s theory? No matter the political pressure, keep the state closed until the virus has demonstrably receded as measured by widely available evidence, reduced hospitalization rates, and decreased deaths.
“We tested both theories,” Cuomo told me. “We have the evidence. They are numbers. It is irrefutable. Why don’t we stop and acknowledge the undeniable reality of the situation?”
How did New York do it? “We had a gradual reopening based on metrics,” Cuomo explained. “Factual Data Points”.
Cuomo says that New York now tests more people than any other state in the country and more people, per capita, than any other country in the world. The state has 700 test sites and, on Friday alone, conducted 70,000 tests of Covid-19.
“The most strident Trump supporters, the most strident ideologues – Texas, Florida – are doing a pirouette and there is nothing funny about the pirouette,” Cuomo said of his fellow governors.
So what does Cuomo want? Less a celebration of what he did in New York than an admission, nationally, that the White House theory of how to handle the pandemic was totally wrong.
“There are no Democratic or Republican facts,” he told me. “There are only facts.” Cuomo added:
“A virus has a rate of increase and a number of deaths increases or decreases. The number of people who go to hospitals increases or decreases. It is not subject to debate because the hospital bed is empty or completely, we or bury people or not us. “
That final thought is what Cuomo believes the country needs. Ignore the facts and play politics, and what happened in New York City could happen again. And no one, Republican, Democrat, Independent or other, can want that.
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