STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – It’s a total joke.
That’s the only conclusion that you can come to after the debacle we saw between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday, when the decision to close schools was announced.
The only thing we know for sure is that the New York City public schools are closed. What’s not so clear is how we actually got here.
All along, we’ve been told that public schools would have to close once the city’s coronavirus test positivity rate reached 3 percent.
The hammer finally fell on Wednesday, with de Blasio at a press conference saying that the city had indeed reached the dreaded threshold and that New York City school children would move to all-remote learning.
The earliest they may return to the classroom is the Monday after Thanksgiving, but even that seems a reach at this point.
Funny thing, though. At his own press conference earlier, Cuomo had said that the city’s test positivity rate was just 2.5 percent. And he was clearly caught by surprise when told by reporters that de Blasio had indeed closed the schools.
Forget being on the same page. These two guys, who are supposed to lead us through the coming dark winter of the COVID-19 pandemic, aren’t even reading from the same book.
De Blasio shrugged when reporters asked him about the difference between the city and state numbers. The numbers have been different throughout the pandemic, the mayor said. We use different methods to arrive at the test positivity rate. No biggie. Next question.
In other words, they’re making it up as they go along.
This is how monumental decisions affecting millions of school children and parents are being made. Everybody good with that?
All throughout the pandemic, Cuomo has lectured us, often at high volume, to “follow the science, not the politics” when it comes to our pandemic response. Trust the experts. Trust the numbers. Follow the data.
But we can’t do that if our supreme leaders don’t even agree on the most basic number, the test positivity rate, or how to calculate it. How are ordinary New Yorkers supposed to trust any of it?
Even the 3 percent school-closure trigger is in itself an arbitrary number, decided upon by de Blasio in consultation with this experts.
Cuomo last week suggested that the mayor avoid a blanket school system shutdown because increased testing could show if certain individual schools were safer than others.
Speaking of which, it was just the other day that the city was bragging about the minuscule 0.17 percent test positivity rate in the city schools.
De Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza were puffing their chests that schools were not the virus super-spreader environments that many feared they would be. De Blasio looked to have won out on his gamble to reopen schools.
So schools are actually safe. So why do a blanket shutdown now? Why not do more targeted closures? What happened to our micro-cluster approach?
Sure, we’re just talking about numbers here. But the numbers have enormous implications with the threat of more pandemic restrictions already in the air.
Cuomo and de Blasio have basically said that the city is headed for Orange Zone designation, which would close indoor dining and other businesses.
It would take us back to some of the worst of the bad days of the pandemic. And in the icy bleakness of winter. Livelihoods will be lost. Businesses could shutter for good. We’ll be told it’s all for the greater good.
But how can New Yorkers be comfortable with such sweeping decisions being made by two men who aren’t even working from the same set of numbers?
It would be laughable if it weren’t so dire.
The Link LonkNovember 20, 2020 at 12:17AM
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‘Science’ fail: Cuomo, de Blasio make a joke out of coronavirus numbers (opinion) - silive.com
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Joke
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