New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday defended his state’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, saying that they weren’t late to the game and that if anything have gotten criticized for being too aggressive.
“No, no — I think New York was early and I think the actions we took were more dramatic than most and frankly were criticized as being premature,” Mr. Cuomo said.
“People thought I closed the city schools prematurely — that was the ongoing debate. Look, if anything in retrospect, it shows what we did is right,” he said.
Mr. Cuomo’s comments came shortly after the New York Times published an extensive report making the case that the governor, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and other state and local officials were comparatively slow to act and come to grips with the scope of the problem in New York.
Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the paper that if the state and city had adopted widespread social distancing measures a week or two earlier, the estimated death toll from the outbreak might have been reduced by 50% to 80%.
As chief executive of the hardest-hit U.S. state, Mr. Cuomo has been the most prominent U.S. governor amid the current outbreak. He’s gotten constant national attention and has even had to bat aside speculation about his joining the 2020 Democratic presidential ticket.
He has gotten comparatively more attention than state chief executives like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose early intervention in concert with localities in his state arguably prevented the scope of the problem from escalating into what the tri-state area is currently suffering through.
Mr. Newsom announced this week that his state managed to procure a monthly supply of a whopping 200 million protective masks for a state with close to 40 million residents.
That level of supply could allow California to distribute excess supplies to other states in need - a role many governors have said the federal government should play during the crisis.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.