Andrew Cuomo might be a good TV performer, but as far as results, the data and metrics show he was the single worst performing governor in America.
Andrew Cuomo managed to kill New York’s economy before the crisis, then killed 10,000 Senior Citizens with the single dumbest, deadliest decision of the crisis.
But he looked great doing it, with beautiful, charming, grandstanding, theatrical briefings.
But..........
New York State, with 6 percent of the nation’s population, had 24 percent of America’s pandemic deaths, as well as 22 percent of its confirmed caseload.
How bad was his crisis management?
1) He waited two weeks too long to close the schools, even deriding Mayor De Blasio when he begged him to do it. He NEVER shut down the subways, the single biggest spreader of the virus, and never even bothered to disinfect them until week SEVEN of the lockdown.The result is the virus so far has taken six times as many New Yorkers as it has Californians, even though California has double the population and started out with more cases than New York did.
2) The state’s lockdown job losses exceed the national average by 50 percent. The lockdown put 2 million people out of work, suddenly struggling to pay their rent or feed their families. He wiped out 35% of small businesses in NY.
3) Governor Cuomo never showed empathy. While he would pour on his best funeral director voice and make a fuss over the death numbers, in his endless briefings he would never even mention or discuss the millions of lives and livelihoods that were destroyed by the lockdown or the thousands of businesses that were bankrupted.
4) Then there was his dumbest and deadliest decision on March 25th. His official order to nursing homes that they had to take in Coronavirus patients even though they had no way to control the infections (they’re not hospitals) and the result was 10,000 dead senior citizens. He could have sent them to the empty 4000 bed Javitz Center hospital that he never used, or the 1000 bed hospital ship Comfort that he never used. He could have done what Florida did, and set aside one nursing home and convert it to an entirely Coronavirus patient Nursing home. He banned visitors to nursing homes, because they might have Coronavirus, while ordering the homes to take patients who definitely had the virus. He made some menacing comments threatening the nursing home's state issued licenses, which kept them quiet. To help them, he later snuck a clause into the budget that would make it illegal for any of the senior citizen's families to sue the nursing homes. He even tried to blame the White House for his catastrophic order, claiming he was following federal guidelines, which is absolutely not true.
5) He misread the situation, every week, under estimating it for weeks saying there was no reason to shut down, then over estimating everything for weeks, screaming that he needed 40,000 ventilators and 200,000 beds.
6) After many years of his leadership, his state is now totally broke, slashing services, even announcing the shutdown of half its transit system.
7) He is now presiding over the greatest surge in crime in the history of New York, an unprecedented crime wave, the streets of his largest cities now filled with junkies and homeless
8) He signed legislation ordering the release of 10,000 of the state's most violent criminals into the streets. He signed legislation ordering new criminals arrested to be immediately released without bail. Police report many thousands of cases of them committing endless robberies and violent attacks over and over and still being released immediately. Totally insane decisions.
9) He has the caused the biggest exodus ever from New York state. Almost a million people fleeing New York this year alone. The NY Times reports that so many people are fleeing NY that moving companies now have a 4 month waiting list and there is a huge shortage of moving vans.
Before the crisis, NY state’s economy was a disaster, billions in debt, ridiculously high taxes had more people fleeing NY state than every other state in America.It was said that Andrew Cuomo was U-Hauls number one salesman in 2019.
New York is going to need rescuing from Andrew Cuomo, Bill De Blasio, and Albany and a totally incompetent city council that can't be trusted.