And that's also unfortunately why the death rate is so unconscionably high here in NY: our leaders failed us and shut down way too late.

And that is why I find it hilarious to see everybody fawning over governer Cuomo now.

It’s still unclear to me whether Cuomo dropped the ball, or whether he was hindered by De Blasio.

Either way, Inslee and Breed deserve more credit. Preventing a crisis is superior to responding effectively after its started.

They both dropped the ball big time. de Blasio went to the gym on literally the last day before those kinds of businesses were shuttered. He kept waffling on shuttering the schools and waited way too late. He only started taking things seriously when the heads of his department of health threatened to resign if he didn't take more action. See e.g.: https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/politics/new-york-ci...

They both started off as a complete joke on this. Cuomo has at least since been improving, but de Blasio remains a complete joke. He's incapable of so much as even closing some empty streets (or some lanes on streets) to give pedestrians more space to spread out. Other cities have been doing this to great success, but de Blasio has only ever understood things from the perspective of being behind a windshield.

No, De Blasio wanted to issue a shelter in place order on March 17 and Cuomo said absolutely not. Then eventually Cuomo comes around and they start a shelter in place on March 22nd.

I'm not so sure it's 'fawning' so much as he's in the spotlight so much because his state is currently the worst.

There has definitely been plenty of fawning, I can confirm.

It's not their fault.

The disease hit New York first before it hit anywhere else in the US and hence had a lot of time to develop. I heard from one source, that it was already present in New York back in december and that one of the first worldwide cases came to New york early. that was from a Joe Rogan podcast episode.

Given the close economic and cultural ties between the west coast and Asia, I find it very hard to believe that Coronavirus travelled through Europe to NYC before it travelled directly from China to LA or SF.

We don't even know if "time to develop" in that way is even a thing in reality.

Seems to be a lesson well learnt from 1918. SF skipped the first wave back then too. Good to hear some people remember and take notes.

NYC was the best city on the entire east coast back then. We closed early and had fewer deaths because of it. Unfortunately that lesson wasn't learned (likely because nobody in charge of anything back then is still alive today), and this time we were unfortunately saddled with an incompetent governor and mayor who hadn't learned from history and didn't take action soon enough.