New York ‘seriously considering’ Florida COVID-19 quarantine

Andrew Cuomo speaks against a backdrop of medical supplies at the Jacob Javits Center. Image via AP.

COVID-19 fears may block Floridians from traveling to the New York City area, Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned Monday, suggesting the Tri-state area could block Sunshine State visitors from the recent coronasurge.

“Now our fear in New York is those people are going to travel to New York and bring the virus with them,” the Governor said on MSNBC Monday morning.

New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut could, in “regional collaboration,” impose a two-week quarantine on Florida travelers until the state finally quells the recent uptick in infections.

“I get phone calls from people in Florida,” Cuomo groused, “who say ‘we want to come to New York because we’re afraid of the virus.'”

For Cuomo, who saw New Yorkers quarantined when traveling to Florida when his state’s caseload was the talk of the world, recent developments seemed to offer him some vindication, as he contrasted his state’s performance with that of Florida and other states, which reopened “politically” rather than heeding “the science.”

“Look at Florida, look at Texas, look at Arizona. Let them look in the mirror and say they were wrong, we’re killing people unnecessarily with this reckless reopening. And it’s not working for the economy either.”

States like Florida, Cuomo contended, pushed to “reopen, reopen, reopen.” New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut were driven by the “science,” Cuomo said, taking a “political pounding” from the White House for doing so.

“We tested those theories … following the science,” Cuomo said, saying states that opened “quickly and recklessly without any controls” are “seeing the virus going up.”

“Florida, Arizona, Texas … 20 states,” Cuomo said. “That’s what happens when you reopen politically. And you see the virus go up.”

The Governor noted these states “didn’t do any favors for the economy,” as “the virus goes up, the markets go down.”

Cuomo castigated current messaging saying that the increased positive tests are simply a function of more tests being administered.

“They gave us a whole line: it’s not that the virus is going up, it’s that we’re doing more testing,” Cuomo said. “That is just not true.”

“You look at Florida, more people are going into hospitals. It has nothing to do with testing. More people are going to ICU beds. It has nothing to do with testing.”

“The virus is up, more people are getting sick,” Cuomo continued. “The number of deaths keep going up.”

Discussion of deaths continued.

Cuomo addressed the now over 6,300 nursing home deaths due to COVID-19, a trend that led Gov. Ron DeSantis to snap that if Floridians were to be quarantined, it shouldn’t be in New York nursing homes.

“Governors have prerogative to do what they need to do. If that is done, please don’t quarantine Floridians in nursing homes in New York,” DeSantis told reporters in Tallahassee during a rare Saturday press conference.

Despite Cuomo ordering COVID-19 positives back to these facilities, the fault was not his, he said.

“The Republicans are playing politics.”

“We had more people die in nursing homes than anywhere else because we had more people die,” Cuomo said, blaming the federal government for a “failure to handle this pandemic and warn the nation.”