I’ve watched every one of Cuomo’s press conferences. He message is always clear - that we are trying to not overwhelm the health system.
He doesn’t say “flatten the curve” because he believes words matter and tries to communicate to avoid panic (Hence his refusal to call “Stay Indoors” as “Shelter in Place”)
But the medical side of the state government - along with their action - has been consistently flatten the curve.
No one but the highly delusional believes we can roll back community spread.
This piece of this story is utterly fascinating to me right now. It's like half the population has a completely different interpretation of the phrase shelter-in-place. I feel like it's entirely too vague and has led to a situation where, in my neck of the woods in Orange county, CA, people are using the ambiguous language to justify going about their daily lives. Where, to me, the order is very clear: stay in or near your home. The beach isn't in or near my home. It isn't in or near the majority of our homes. And neither is the dog park, or the county or state parks, or the national forest near us, etc.. And, yet, on social media, it's very easy to find people complaining about how surprised they were when they went to the beach, or where ever, and it was totally packed with people. It's making me question my sanity that we can have such wildly different interpretations of this situation.
I had to venture out Friday in NYC and parks and streets were filled with people. Lines to get cocktails going down the street. Basketball games. No one wearing masks. For the first time since it started I started to be worried about my family and myself.
I think "Stay In Your Home" or "Stay the Fk Home" are needed as daily SMS messages and voicemails.
Because the American conception of "gently tell people to do the right thing, and their good ole spirit will volunteer to do the right thing" is false.
In France, there are drones flying around blasting speakers at high decibals for people to stay in their homes. There are fines, and repeat offenders can face six months of jail.
In NYC (I live in NYC), we've denigrated the police for the past few years as "fascist" -- ask any average 25 year old you meet in a coffeeshop or Brooklyn bar -- there are protests over arresting people who do illegal things. Police enforcement of simple crimes is considered "a waste of police resources" at best and at worst "systemic racism in action." If you talk about enforcement of subway vagrancy and crimes like smoking on the platform, urinating and so forth, you'll hear a lecture about redlining and some other academic topics from history, you'll be reminded of stop and frisk, quotas and so on. So there you have it, the Left made it hard to sustain order. But the Right doesn't get away scot-free: every Trump supporter I talk to says, "It's my Constitutional Right to do what I want!"
So there you have it. Both Right and Left united in favor of individualism and against common good.
I've been blown away by Cuomo's steady hand and
calm reassurance in this time. While De Blasio has flip-flopped from apathy to utter panic, Cuomo has remained fairly consistent. I appreciate his insistence on preventing panic by using specific language.
“The timeline, nobody can tell you, it depends on how we handle it,” Mr. Cuomo said. “But 40 percent, up to 80 percent of the population will wind up getting this virus. All we’re trying to do is slow the spread, but it will spread.”
He doesn’t say “flatten the curve” because he believes words matter and tries to communicate to avoid panic (Hence his refusal to call “Stay Indoors” as “Shelter in Place”)
But the medical side of the state government - along with their action - has been consistently flatten the curve.
No one but the highly delusional believes we can roll back community spread.