Come Back New Yorkers, and be Quarantined

When it comes to incompetent governance they are going to be writing multiple volumes about the clown duo of Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio.

Gov. Cuomo, you recall, asked the federal government to provide a hospital ship and a mass of new hospital beds for coronavirus patients. Then, as soon as the beds were in place, Cuomo proceeded to send recovering coronavirus patients to nursing homes, where they infected elderly and infirm patients, causing the second highest national mortality rate. Naturally, our intrepid journalists have ignored the story. To consider them to be ethical offends the meaning of the term ethical.

And then there is New York City’s mayor comrade de Blasio. After having joined forces with a certifiable imbecile named Alexandriz Ocasio-Cortez to persuade Amazon that anything would be preferable to dealing with New York politicians, de Blasio decided to empty the city’s prisons, to disband the police anti-crime task force and to accuse white police officers every time a black citizen committed a crime. The result: rioting, looting, pillaging, arson and muggings. It was open season on New Yorkers, or, at least, on those New Yorkers who had stayed in the city.

For the record, crime rates have been rising in New York City’s toniest neighborhoods. And the police are nowhere to be found. As has been noted on this blog, the coronavirus and high taxes have chased many of New York’s wealthiest from town. Some are at their summer homes. Many are thinking that there is no reason to come back. After all, AOC is threatening to hike their taxes.

Apparently, if we are to believe Gov. Cuomo, 1% of the population pays some 50% of the taxes-- I had thought it was 40%, so I stand corrected. Anyway, it makes a mockery of the notion of paying one's fair share of taxes. It takes very few moving vans to render the city and the state destitute. Or better, to send it begging to Washington for handouts.

Now Cuomo is larning that many of those who left are not coming back. And he is not happy about it. He has been calling them, begging them to come back. It would be ironic if it were not serious:

The Daily Mail has the story:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is begging wealthy New Yorkers to return to the city to save it from economic ruin while fighting off calls from other lawmakers to raise their taxes, a move he fears could permanently drive the top 1 percent out of the city. 

Thousands of New York City residents fled Manhattan and Brooklyn earlier this year when the city was the COVID-19 epicenter of the world. 

Many flocked to their second homes in the Hamptons or upstate, while others rented or bought new properties, abandoning their expensive city apartments.

Now, six months on with no end to the national nightmare in sight, many are laying down permanent roots. While New York has overcome its battle against the virus, the rest of the country - where lockdown rules have been far more relaxed - is seeing a resurgence. 

It is preventing New York City from resuming its normal activity because Cuomo fears a second spike in cases will happen if just one person from a worse-affected state travels in and infects residents again. 

At a press conference on interview on Tuesday, he said of the wealthiest residents who have long left the city: 'They are in their Hamptons homes, or Hudson Valley or Connecticut. 

'I talk to them literally every day. I say. "When are you coming back? I’ll buy you a drink. I’ll cook,' he said. 

As though it couldn’t get any more pathetic, at exactly the same time, Comrade de Blasio was setting up checkpoints to screen people coming back to the city. People traveling from the Hudson Valley or the Hamptons might not be checked, but those who are coming back from their homes in Florida will be. And they will be subjected to a forced quarantine.

So, come back to New York, and be quarantined. Via the New York Post:

Out-of-state travelers could face up to $10,000 in fines if they break New York City’s two-week quarantine rule and checkpoints will be set up at entry points into the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday.

Currently, travelers from 35 high-risk infection states and Puerto Rico must quarantine for 14 days. Those flying into New York airports are also required to fill out a special travel form — or face a $2,000 fine.

There you have it. Come back, New Yorkers, but we are going to stop you at border checkpoints and force you into quarantine.