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New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s repeated comments downplaying the coronavirus
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Apr 01, 2020 09:54am |
| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Apr 01, 2020 08:55am |
| Description | President Trump’s repeated downplaying of the coronavirus threat has increasingly come back to haunt him as the outbreak has truly taken hold. But in the hardest-hit area in the country, another top politician’s previous comments minimizing the threat are forcing a reckoning.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) was confronted over the weekend on CNN’s “State of the Union” over past comments in which he, too, minimized the threat and urged people to go about their lives, including as recently as mid-March.
“We should not be focusing, in my view, on anything looking back on any level of government right now,” de Blasio responded.
The idea that politicians should not be judged by their comments early in a crisis is, of course, not how it works. Politicians should have future decisions judged in light of how they have handled a situation in the past. But it’s understandable why de Blasio does not want to turn back the clock.
Throughout the crisis that has now hit New York City harder than any other area of the country, de Blasio offered comments that, like Trump’s, downplayed the threat and suggested that the city was ready for what lay ahead. The mayor also repeatedly told people that transmission of the disease was very unlikely in casual encounters and in public places.
The mayor said Feb. 26 of the city’s 1,200 hospital beds: “We’ve got a long time to ramp up if we ever had anything like that [kind of crisis]. So, the capacity we have right now is outstanding given the challenge we’re facing right now.” |
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