Cuomo: "We will have nothing left to open"?

There were lots of headlines yesterday over an Andrew Cuomo tweet, which incorporated remarks in his New York State of the State address.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for the economy to reopen following strict lockdowns in New York that crippled businesses.

“We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass. The cost is too high. We will have nothing left to open. We must reopen the economy, but we must do it smartly and safely,” he tweeted Monday morning.

Even so, left, right, and center, these are the news writers who brought us the kraken. The report in the link above says Cuomo "laid out a plan to stop the spread of the coronavirus while addressing the financial struggles in the state". Er, where? Based on my reading, the speech was nothing but a series of bromides aiming to make the right noises, but I saw absolutely no specifics.

Remember, all the lawsuits are plaintiff v Cuomo. As is the case with nearly every lockdown in nearly every state, the instigator is the governor's emergency orders. All that's needed to end or loosen a lockdown is for the governor to rescind or modify one or another emergency order. The health officials do his bidding.

What's missing from Cuomo's announcement is any specific order to end by any specific date. Anything other than that is just making noises. Meanwhile, according to the New York Times,

Across New York State, medical providers in recent weeks had the same story: They had been forced to throw out precious vaccine doses because of difficulties finding patients who matched precisely with the state’s strict vaccination guidelines — and the steep penalties they would face had they made a mistake.

On Saturday, state health officials responded to the outcry over discarded vaccines by again abruptly loosening guidelines as coronavirus cases continued to rise.

The story suggests there's a vague sense of urgency, but even there, there's no indication that any restriction will be lifted as any vaccination program becomes effective. According to CNN, this is a national problem.

Out of the more than 22 million doses of vaccine that have been distributed to hospitals and pharmacies so far in the United States, only about 6.7 million people have received their first dose, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There's no one reason for the slow rollout or doses going unused; experts say it was never going to be easy to begin a mass vaccination campaign during a pandemic. It takes time to vaccinate and monitor large numbers of people, and some facilities are staggering staff vaccinations to avoid having too many health care workers out at once.

The supply and demand don't always line up. Some in the highest priority groups -- health care workers and and long-term care facility residents -- don't want the vaccine, or at least, not yet. At the same time, the American Medical Association on Friday said it was "concerned" that some health care workers not employed by hospitals or health care systems face difficulties accessing the vaccine.

So naturally, the news -- left, right, and cetner -- focuses on impeachment.