Joseph Mallord William Turner The Fifth Plague of Egypt 1800
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m under the impression that President Trump yesterday wanted to quarantine New York City but let himself get talked out of that by, among others, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo went as far as calling such a measure not merely “un-American”, he said it would be “preposterous” and “anti-American”.
Obviously, Cuomo is not just of the belief, like most Americans, that a country with less than 5% of the world population is really special and superior, but also that a city with less than 4% of that country’s population is even more special than the rest. All pigs are equal, but…
There doesn’t appear to be another explanation for labeling attempts to keep New Yorkers from spreading the coronavirus around the entire country “anti-American”. Still, it would be anti-New York at best, and probably not that either. After Wuhan, China and Lombardy, Italy, New York City has become the third consecutive epicenter for the virus. Cuomo is well aware of this.
Still, he pontificates: “Then we would be Wuhan, China, and that wouldn’t make any sense..” Actually,. it would. Just look at the numbers. But: “..this would cause the stock market to crash in a way that would make it impossible for the US economy to “recover for months, if not years”.
This is possible. But that’s what Wuhan and Milan also experience(d). No stock markets there, true, but both the Italian and Chinese markets have been hit hard nonetheless. In the end it’s a trade-off. You let people die while trying to prop up markets, or you put people first. Cuomo made his choice.
Trump Backs Away From New York Quarantine
Speaking to reporters earlier on Saturday about the situation in New York, Mr Trump said: “We’d like to see [it] quarantined because it’s a hotspot… I’m thinking about that.” He said it would be aimed at slowing the spread of the virus to other parts of the US. “They’re having problems down in Florida. A lot of New Yorkers are going down. We don’t want that,” he said. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo responded by saying that quarantining the state of New York would be “preposterous” and “anti-American”.
“If you said we were geographically restricted from leaving, that would be a lockdown.” He said New York had already implemented “quarantine” measures, such as banning major gatherings and ordering people to remain at home, but that he would oppose any “lockdown” efforts. “Then we would be Wuhan, China, and that wouldn’t make any sense,” he told CNN, adding that this would cause the stock market to crash in a way that would make it impossible for the US economy to “recover for months, if not years”.
“You would paralyse the financial sector,” he said. He added later: “I don’t know how that can be legally enforceable. And from a medical point of view, I don’t know what you would be accomplishing. “But I can tell you, I don’t even like the sound of it.” Mr Cuomo also said he would sue nearby Rhode Island if the authorities there continued targeting New Yorkers and threatening to punish them for failing to quarantine.
And of course Trump made his choice, too, no two ways about it. He’s as close to literally fiddling while Rome burns as you can get in the 21st century. But when he’s trying to limit the damage with a quarantine, the folks who criticize him hardest for not doing enough, protest the loudest.
The idea that it is Trump who killed off the US health care system is tempting for media and politics alike, but it is utter nonsense. Even Fareed Zakaria agrees with me on that one just now on CNN, and that’s so rare I can’t help taking note.
At the very latest starting with Reagan, the idea has been that government is America’s enemy. And now the country needs its government, which is full of people who agree with Reagan’s ideas. So no, this is not going to go well
It’ll be something to behold what happens going forward, with 150,000 Americans infected today, moving towards 1 million by next weekend. Blame it all on Trump? Well, they’ll try. Here’s a little map of flight movements dated March 28, maybe that gives you an idea of how this disease pandemic is spread stateside:
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1244003511098134529
Just about every country has stalled just about any movement of planes, but not the US. And if it’s up to Cuomo, that’s not going to happen either. Not being able to spread the disease is “anti-American”, after all. Sounds like Cuomo should agree with Trump who says: “They’re having problems down in Florida. A lot of New Yorkers are going down. We don’t want that..” Cuomo apparently does not agree.
A letter originating from the Henry Ford Health System was published (leaked?) online over the past week that perhaps provides a better definition/description of what is “anti-American” than a NYC quarantine. You be the judge. This is the best version I could find, it was published on Scribd, but later removed (wonder why). Pray tell: is publishing the letter anti-American, or is removing it? It’s still obvious enough.
The letter was sent to multiple hospitals and deals with the situation that would ensue if and when the health system become overwhelmed, something that’s hardly hypothetical anymore. It describes the practice of “triage” in the world’s richest nation: doctors removing patients who don’t improve fast enough, from equipment such as ventilators, and giving them painkillers to soothe their way into a certain and imminent death. “The other Cuomo” explains in this video:
But New Yorkers should still be allowed to fly -or drive- to Michigan, right? See, maybe that’s even better. C’mon Manhattanites, drive to Detroit. Support the US automobile industry, they’re having such a hard time.
Meanwhile, hundreds of doctors and nurses have already been infected, as have similar numbers of policemen- and women, and thousands more of each will follow. But that’s all perfectly pro-American.
PS: the funniest thing in all this is perhaps that normally Trump would agree with Governor Cuomo’s “exceptionalism” ideas, for both America and New York, but he no longer can, he has a tsunami coming straight at him. Still, doesn’t that mean that maybe Cuomo should drop those silly notions too?
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