Friday, March 20, 2020

Mayor Big Slow de Blasio lives up to his name while handling COVID-19's impact on the city

City and State

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio spent the first Monday morning of a worldwide pandemic like he spends every other Monday morning – driving 11 miles to the Prospect Park YMCA for a leisurely workout.

It was just the latest sign that de Blasio isn’t taking the coronavirus outbreak nearly as seriously as public health experts say Americans should. While smaller cities less affected by the disease known as covid-19 were taking radical steps to contain the disease, de Blasio spent the last week leading from behind, only seeming to make decisions after public uproar reached a fever pitch.

"He has been slow to act, not realizing the seriousness of the situation,” a former de Blasio staffer told City & State, on condition of anonymity to speak freely about a former boss. "His normal reluctance to offend important interest groups has proved catastrophic during an epidemic.”

Current employees too, found themselves frustrated by de Blasio’s mismanagement. The Daily News reported Monday that leadership at the New York City

Department of Health and Mental Hygiene threatened to resign if the mayor wouldn’t take a bolder approach. De Blasio denied the reports at a Monday press conference. “I know when somebody comes up to me and says ‘I want to resign,’” he said. “That has not happened.”

De Blasio’s reluctance to take measures experts say are necessary to protect the city, such as closing schools and bars and restaurants, has drawn widespread criticism. In Italy, the authorities' same behaviors led to the explosion of cases and a public health infrastructure so overburdened that respirators are being rationed, with many of the elderly simply left to die. Italians have taken to airwaves and op-ed pages to warn Americans not to repeat their same mistakes. On March 11, former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi went on CNN to say, “Italy wasted time and this was a mistake.”

Last week, many states that are smaller, less densely populated, and less affected by the coronavirus than the New York City region, including Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon, heeded the message and closed schools. Cities such as Los Angeles and Houston also closed their public schools. Yet de Blasio, who likes to play up his Italian heritage and his connection to Italy, didn’t. Instead he emphasized the importance of giving parents the freedom to go to work, rather than stay at home with their kids. “That includes people we desperately need,” he told CNN on Thursday.
“Like first responders. Educators. Health-care professionals.” And while the city and the state asked bars and restaurants to halve their capacity over the weekend, de Blasio still encouraged New Yorkers to go out. “I am not ready today at this hour to say, let's have a city with no bars, no restaurants, no rec centers, no libraries,” he said Saturday.

Now former allies think his slow response and muddled messaging could cause deaths in the city.

“By acting sooner and sooner, he could have saved lives. He didn't,” the former staffer said. “‘He is not a wartime mayor, and this is war.”

As the crisis gathered momentum and de Blasio finally began to take actions he’s been urged to do for days, it raises the question as to whether he will go down in the history books as a failure who cost lives because he was more worried about keeping New Yorkers spending money in bars for a few extra days.

“If you love your neighborhood bar, go there now,” de Blasio said at a City Hall press conference Sunday evening. Merely hours later, de Blasio finally announced that all restaurants had to move to take-out only. Bars that didn't serve food would close, and movie theaters and all other entertainment venues must close too. The executive order would go into effect Tuesday at 9 a.m.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look, those given local power by the boys in the backroom and now run local government are not where they are at because of smarts. Most are not, by far, the sharpest knives in the drawer. They are errand boys and girls for their handlers.

Now they are facing a real crisis and are totally unequipped intellectually to handle it. All they know is how to protect the Party which put them in office, not the Public which rubber-stamped their coronation.

When the crap hits the fan because of their inept polices, ERs are overflowing with the 3rd world and needy, the dead found festering in cellars, savings gone, bills piling up and stores empty, and the economic and social damage starts to spread to the rest of the country, will Washington step in and take charge of local government. Troops will be brought in for a clean up and the the crisis will abate.

And of course the local liberal media will curse Trump for doing so.

Anonymous said...

The only thing De Balsio has done right is the dramatic reduction and near-absence of tranny hookers on Roosevelt Avenue.

Anonymous said...

He needs to shut down the luxury building construction sites. NOT essential. It’s not the construction worker fault because they’re just doing their jobs, but when they’re on break, they’re outside congregating, smoking, not social distancing. That’s the opposite of what the city says they’re trying to accomplish.

Anonymous said...

You can't fix stupid. This guy is in way over his head.

Anonymous said...

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/nancy-pelosi-joe-biden-coronavirus-response-182951133.html

Cav said...

Does this mean we will stop being a sanctuary city and state? Importing novel communicable diseases is the dark side of open borders globalism? Or will we learn that this Agenda 21/Green New Deal idea of stuffing ever more people into cities to insane population density levels in the name of "sustainability" where disease can spread faster than wildfire is a really stupid idea? Nope, not likely.

Like any other doomsday scenario that's been hyped up into a hysteria, look more carefully at the problem, how bad is it really and are the all measures taken really necessary.

Probably not which lends credence to the idea that our overlords are overreacting and will cause far more problems, misery and even death than the disease will cause on its own. Rather like trying to rid of some mice in one's home by using dynamite.

It seems our managerial masters are just playing at marshal law, effectively destroying small businesses, jobs and the economy as a whole for what seems to be no worse than a bad chest cold. Power is never exercised for altruistic reasons but instead power is sought and is the ends itself and not the means to an end.

In this case, it gets us all accustomed to living in an authoritarian police state in a sort of twisted Pavlov's dogs experiment where the dogs are trained to run and hide in their kennels when their master screams "you're all gonna die!". And new powers once taken are rarely if ever given back.

If any of you think these new powers assumed by our electeds are only temporary and won't last more than 18 months or won't be re-invoked for other trivial or even political reasons, you might find yourselves sadly mistaken.



Donald Cavaioli

JQ LLC said...

@Cav

Very, very good points. These are very frightening prospects, especially with all the conflicting information we are getting from our elected "masters"

Thanks for tuning in.

Anonymous said...

I don't trust anyone in mainstream media or anyone that calls themselves a" Progressive".
Progressives are Fascists under a new name.
The Orangeman Bad is a big lie told by people with the TDS Virus !

Anonymous said...

Trump: passes aid bill
Biden: "I wrote that!"

Anonymous said...

A majority of people voted this guy in, and then turned around and reelected him. So New Yorkers must think hes doing a good job.

If election day was tomorrow and we could give him another 4 years, im im sure most New Yorkers would.

JQ LLC said...

@Anon re:TDS virus

I don't consider myself a "progressive" but I do believe and advocate for such actions and policies.

I'm not a fascist.

Last anon re: Joe 30330

That's very very good. Also add "Ga, ga, you know, the thing"


Another thing, Joe and the DNC were encouraging people to vote for him last week as the outbreak continued to spread and assembling in crowds were discouraged by states nationwide. Isis even told their killers not to travel during this global pandemic

Anonymous said...

Just curious which parts of this you all think are “a doomsday scenario hyped up into hysteria”? I ask because my brother is a doctor working in a hospital right now and he says people are not taking this seriously enough and they are getting overwhelmed. My friend’s neighbor exhibited symptoms of this within the past week but couldn’t get a test. He was finally taken to the hospital when he was too weak to stand and is now dead.

I’m as skeptical of the media as the next person. I knew Russiagate and the Impeachment was smoke and mirrors. And they do print a lot of bullshit. But anybody who is dealing with this firsthand will tell you it’s not a game.

JQ LLC said...

@Anon re: "doomsday"

It's really sad that people are still under suspended belief of Trump's initial reaction to this as a hoax. Which a lot of people have misinterpreted as criticism of the media covering the first stages of the outbreak in America, but it was more like Trump having a reflex because of corporate news coverage of him in the past 3 years.

It's because of that and our state's initial unpreparedness that we didn't get the tests we needed soon enough.

Anonymous said...

You ain't seen nothing yet. To be a success with the current program everyone will need self control and a financial cushion. Sure. Wait till this starts to spread within the ghettos and 3rd world communities within Queens and the rest of the country. Perhaps it has already started with the skyrocketing numbers from the past few days.

And if the rest of the country starts to get better, but it lingers in those big urban ghettos, the economy will crash pulling everyone down. Then unprepared Mexico tries to swam north for medical care and work.

That happens and you will have every branch in DC solid Republican after the elections. For a generation. Man, I hope I am wrong.