The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

New York’s ‘Curve’ Has Been Bent

Posted on | April 27, 2020 | Comments Off on New York’s ‘Curve’ Has Been Bent

 

Look very closely at that image from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s press briefing Sunday. The daily peak of new COVID-19 hospitalizations — 3,177, based on three-day rolling averages — was three weeks ago. The latest number, 1,087 on Saturday, represents a 66% reduction.

Think about this, and remember that the whole point of stay-at-home orders and “social distancing” was to “bend the curve,” to avoid a “surge” of hospitalizations that would overwhelm the health-care system. As hard-hit as New York has been, they avoided that crisis, and the “curve” has long since been bent. A two-thirds reduction in new hospitalizations, sustained over the course of three weeks, is an undeniable victory.

Yet the governor, while showing that data, laid out a plan to “re-open” his state that would not return New York to normal before mid-June:

Every day, cable-news channels provide live coverage of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s briefings about his state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. What has happened in New York is not merely the worst COVID-19 outbreak in America, but possibly the worst in the entire world. Such are the biases of our news media, however, that no one ever suggests Cuomo is responsible for the deadly toll of this disease in his state. Instead, the Democratic governor is treated with deference by the press corps, which instead — and rather illogically — focuses the blame on President Trump.
Watching Cuomo’s press briefings is to behold the work of a master in the rhetorical arts of pretended expertise and straw-man arguments against imaginary antagonists who, in opposing the governor’s orders, are irresponsible and unscientific. Cuomo employs a vocabulary (e.g., “evidence,” “research,” “transmission rate”) that conveys an advanced knowledge of epidemiological science which, of course, he does not possess. His audience is expected to forget that, just a few weeks ago, the governor was warning of a shortage of health-care resources based upon computer-modeled projections which proved to be grossly exaggerated . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.




 

Category: Health Care, New York

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