LOL
Speaking of mantis headed reptile overlords,
DeBlasio and Cuomo don't come off as heros in this piece that compares Seattle's and New York's leadership's actions during the early stages of this epidemic. It also cites statements made by a former CDC director who claims if Cuomo and Deblasio had acted like their counterparts in Seattle/WA, as many as 85% of the people who died due to the epidemic in NYC would still be with us.
The initial coronavirus outbreaks on the East and West Coasts emerged at roughly the same time. But the danger was communicated very differently.
www.newyorker.com
Good politicians should worry about poor children missing school just as much as they worry about the threat of an emerging disease. “That’s why E.I.S. training (Epidemic Intelligence Service training)
is so important,” Sonja Rasmussen, a former C.D.C. official, told me. In a pandemic, “the old ways of thinking get flipped around.” She added, “You have to make the kinds of choices that, if you aren’t trained for them, are really hard to make. And there’s no time to learn from your mistakes.”
Today, New York City has the same social-distancing policies and business-closure rules as Seattle. But because New York’s recommendations came later than Seattle’s—and because communication was less consistent—it took longer to influence how people behaved. According to data collected by Google from cell phones, nearly a quarter of Seattleites were avoiding their workplaces by March 6th. In New York City, another week passed until an equivalent percentage did the same. Tom Frieden, the former C.D.C. director, has estimated that, if New York had started implementing stay-at-home orders ten days earlier than it did, it might have reduced covid-19 deaths by fifty to eighty per cent. Another former New York City health commissioner told me that “de Blasio was just horrible,” adding, “Maybe it was unintentional, maybe it was his arrogance. But, if you tell people to stay home and then you go to the gym, you can’t really be surprised when people keep going outside.”
There are plenty of interesting insights in here about the what epidemiologist professionals (as opposed to our forum-pet SCUBA guide-turned Coronavirus expert) actually do. They are part epidemiologist-scientist and part communications specialist. They also didn't try to use tests to determine outcomes, they used tests as public communications tools. Also, pretty clearly, Cuomo botched his job but was saved by Trump's nearly perfect record of taking the wrong steps with each and every stride down this path.