New York Recovers as Red America Faces Disaster

John Cassidy: “New York’s comeback is a testimony to the heroic efforts of health professionals, E.M.T. employees, transit workers, delivery-truck drivers, and equally essential workers in supermarkets, warehouses, and other places—many of them poorly paid—who kept the stricken city and state going through its darkest days and nights. Cuomo and de Blasio, after some critical early missteps, also deserve credit for sticking at it, as do ordinary New Yorkers who obeyed the stay-at-home orders and wore masks when they became available.”

“The key point is that it took a monumental and community-wide effort to limit the official death toll to fewer than twenty-five thousand statewide… The experiences of New Jersey and Massachusetts were similar. Now, as case counts rise alarmingly in other parts of the country, there is every reason to suppose that these places will need similarly comprehensive efforts to prevent a disaster from occurring. At the moment, though, particularly in parts of red America, a combination of poor leadership, public exhaustion, and right-wing politics is greatly hampering an effective response.”