38 newyork| october12–25, 2020
program and just 50 disease detectives in
New York City, compared with 9,000 at
the peak of the crisis in Wuhan—but nei-
ther did anyone else. There were some
noncompliance issues with masks and
social distancing, but that was true every-
where.AndyetNewYorkjusthada dra-
maticallyworseepidemicthananyother
stateinthecountry. Infact,worsethan
anywhereelseintheworld.WhydidNew
Yorkgethitsohard?
It’smass.Youhavemoreinfectedpeople
comingherefora longerperiodoftime.
See,whenyousayit’s inChina—okay,how
manypeoplearecomingherefromChina?
Thenumberof peoplecomingfromEurope
is muchhigher.Thoseflightswerecoming
fortwomonthsbeforeanyonesaidany-
thing.Nobodysaid,“Bewareofpeople
comingfromItalyandfromSpainand
fromFr ance.”TheydidtheChinatravel
banJanuary 31.Thebigmisswasthedis-
easehadalreadyleft China.It wasin
Europe.TheEuropeantravelban,March
13—thatwastenweekslate.
Andtheydidn’t evenreallyclosethe
dooronChina,becausetheyletallthe
Americannationalswhohadbeenthere
return.
True.Butat least wedidsomethingJan-
uary31.That’swhy thepresidentkeeps
talkingaboutJanuary 31.“I didtheChina
banJanuary 31.” Yeah.What hedoesn’t
wanttosayis “ButtheviruscametoNew
York, andmost of thiscountry, from
Europe.”Andyoudidn’t dotheEuropean
banuntilmid-March.
Do youthinkitwouldhave beenpoliti-
callyfeasibleforTrumptoenacta global
travelbanasearlyaslateJanuary?
Oh,I thinkhewouldhavedoneit. I think
theydidn’t know.
Whatelsecouldhave beendone?
Thefirstpointaboutcovid, I think,and
thetranscendentpoint,isit’s shownour
nation’s lackofcapacity tomanage major
situationsrequiringa unifiedresponseand
a competentgovernment.covidis a health
episode,butyouhavesocialcrisesthatyou
havetorespondto,criminal-justicereform.
Youhaveenvironmentalcrisesthat you’re
goingtohavetorespondto,climate change.
Andwhatthisreallypointsoutisour
inabilitytomountaneffectivedefense.
- AsofOctober9,
New YorkState had
thefourth-lowest
case-positivityrate.
2. “I’mquitepreparedto believethat
therearepocketsinNewYorkCity
andLondonwhichhavesubstantial
immunity,”Harvardepidemiologist
BillHanage toldtheNewYorkTimes
inAugust.“Whathappensthiswinter
t that.”
3. SenatorRandPaulofKentucky
hasoftenmadedubiousclaims
aboutthethresholdatwhichherd
immunityis reached,statingthat
it’ s lowerthanexpertssay. During
a September 23 hearing,Fauci
finallyshotback:“Youarenot
listeningtowhat thedirectorof
theCDCsaid...Ifyoubelieve 22
percentisherdimmunity,
I believeyouarealone.”
Andwedomorefaster, andbetter,frankly,
becauseI wassodesperate forquantifiable,
hardinformationforsolong.Therewereso
manyweekswhereeveryexpertsaid,“Well,
I’mnotsure,butI think...”Nobodyknew
anything.Theonlythingyouknewwas
whatthedatashowed,andthat’swhy we
weresoaggressiveinsettingupthedata.
I wantedtoaskyouaboutcommunity
protection—somepeopleusetheterm
herdimmunity,butina waythatismis-
leading.Thereare thosewhobelieve New
YorkCityinparticularhashadenoughof
thediseasespreadthatfuture transmis-
sionwillbeslowedbypreviousexposure.^2
Doyouputanytrustinthat?Or doyou
thinkwe’re stillvulnerabletothekindof
exponentialrateofincreasewesawear-
lierinthespring?
Herd immunity is 50, 60 percent.
You’reat 20percentinNewYorkCity.
That’stheRandPaulversusAnthony
Fauci argument.^3 And Paul was just
wrong.It ’s just math.
Twentypercentisa lotofexposure.So
whywasit sobadhere?Youwere criticized
formovingtooslowly, butyouwentfrom
thefirstconfirmedcasetoannouncinga
shutdownin 19 days—muchfasterthan
theWestCoaststates.^4 Youhadinade-
quatetestingcapacity,but sodidevery-
oneelseinthecountry. Youdidn’t really
havea contact-tracingprogram—nostate
Howscaredareyouofthefall?How
scaredshouldwebe?
Nobodyknows.Butwhat thescientists
havealwayssaidis “Bewareofthefall.” This
is sortoflike dealingwiththetidesinthe
ocean;whenthereis hightideandthereis
lowtide,youaregoingtobesubjectedto
thetide.DoI anticipatea hightide? Yes.
Buteverythingwe’veseensofar, we’rein
bettershapethaneveryotherstate,^1 andwe
arebetterprepared.
AndinNewYork,wearea function,in
part,ofwhat’sgoingonintherest ofthe
nation.We havethisquarantineagainst 34
states, but in truth, it’s water through a
screen. I can’t stop people and truckers
coming in from other parts of the country.
I can’t stop people from flying into airports;
that’s all federal. So if there are infections in
Florida and Texas, that’s going tohurt us
here. We have a cluster problem, but if the
fall tide increases because people are going
indoors, because there’s less outdoor activ-
ity, because people are going to schools ...
We see it in colleges, certainly. And we will
see it in schools.
You’re pretty clear about that.
Schools, no matter how well you do it,
there will be transmission in schools. But
we now do 120,000 tests a day. That’s our
highest point ever. The highest per capita
on the globe. Testing is the one smart,
definitive function that you can perform.
T
en months since China acknowledged the first outbreak of the coronavirus
in Wuhan, and seven months since the who declared it a global pandemic,
there’s nowhere on the planet that’s been hit harder than New York State, where
almost 33,000 people have died, most of them during a terrifying surge in
March and April. This week, Governor Andrew Cuomo publishes American
Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the covid-19 Pandemic. And while that may
look to New Yorkers like the height of chutzpah—the guy who presided over a
period of historic suffering and unparalleled death putting out a self-lionizing
memoir—it’s not as presumptuous a gambit as it at first seems. Through the
spring and summer, as President Trump essentially ignored the coronavirus,
Cuomo played a kind of alternate-reality president for information-hungry lib-
erals nationwide, scrambling to expand state hospital and testing capacity and
delivering daily televised press conferences tracing the course of the disease and
what we knew about it, which helped make him, in time, the second-most-
trusted American voice on the pandemic, behind Dr. Anthony Fauci. We spoke
in early October, when a small rise in cases was beginning to appear, as had been
forecast since the start of the pandemic, and the presidential campaign was taking what
seemed like a decisive turn away from Trump, Cuomo’s frequent pandemic sparring partner.
The governor was in alternately combative and reflective moods. “Trying to make sense of
it all,” he said, when I asked how he was doing. “Trying to make sense of it.”
