Punishments for spreading COVID-19 are, apparently, only for the little people.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, the man who turned New York nursing homes into COVID-19 hot spots, killing thousands, is now upset about some naturally occurring hot spots that are far less deadly — and, consequently, he’s fining some Orthodox Jewish institutions $15,000 for violating his selectively enforced prohibitions.
Cuomo’s latest restrictions were slapped on 20 Brooklyn and Queens zip codes, divided into “red,” “orange,” and “yellow” zones; the red are subject to the harshest restrictions, with “non-essential businesses” (non-essential to whom?) shut down and restaurants allowed to provide only take-out service.
This is despite the fact that Dr. David Nabarro, World Health Organization special envoy on COVID-19, just warned that lockdowns increase poverty and are not the best way to combat the disease. Note that The New American and other Truth-oriented individuals/entities have been sounding this alarm from the very moment lockdowns were proposed months ago.
Of course, that Cuomo’s restrictions also affect houses of worship has rankled New York’s orthodox Jews, as well as a Brooklyn Catholic bishop. Rightly so, too. After all, leftist politicians not only encouraged Black Lives Matter protests during the pandemic’s peak, but in June Cuomo called the tearing down of statues “healthy expression.” Yet he apparently believes religious expression will make you sick.
This sick and discriminatory policy has inspired lawsuits by the orthodox Jews and the aforementioned bishop, Nicholas DiMarzio of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. As the prelate explained in an October 8 statement that relates the restrictions placed on houses of worship:
The executive orders this week have left us with no other option than to go to court. Our churches have the capacity to accommodate many worshippers and to reset our attendance capacity to 10 people maximum in the red zone, and 25 people in the orange zone, when we have had no significant cases, impedes our right to worship and cannot stand.
“The State has completely disregarded the fact that our safety protocols have worked and it is an insult to once again penalize all those who have made the safe return to Church work,” the bishop continued.
“In a separate lawsuit, multiple Orthodox Jewish synagogues and rabbis argued that the restrictions interfered with their religious practices,” reports the Christian Post.
Two federal judges, however, have during the last several days ruled against the diocese and the Jewish plaintiffs, refusing to issue a restraining order against Cuomo’s restrictions.
And now, reports WNBC-TV’s Myles Miller in a tweet, five Borough Park, Brooklyn, “religious institutions were levied $15,000 fines for having more than 10 people inside.”
Yet the double standards — again, having encouraged BLM protests while prohibiting other large gatherings — haven’t escaped everyone’s notice. Nor has the government restrictions’ irrationality.
“This is something which is very devastating to communities of faith,” MSN reports Rabbi David Zwiebel of Agudath Israel of America as saying. “‘Why in the world would a large shul with large capacity be treated the same as a small shul?’”
Randy Mastro, the attorney representing the Brooklyn diocese, complained that the “religious community will be denied its most fundamental right — the free exercise of religion — for no legitimate reason whatsoever.”
Given this, it’s not surprising that anti-Cuomo protests erupted last week, as the tweets below (hat tip: Fox News) evidence.
Generally lost in this conversation is that the “hot spot” designation can be deceptive. For it’s not the infection rate that matters, but the hospitalization and mortality rates; in fact, the former being high but the latter low can be a positive development because it may yield herd immunity.
And while New York reportedly has the most people (826 as of October 12) hospitalized with the virus since July 15, the statistic tells little without having the answers to the following questions:
- How many of these patients are hospitalized because of the virus, as opposed to just “with the virus”?
- How many come from hot-spot areas?
- How many recent Wuhan virus deaths have there been in these areas?
- How many of the deceased died of, as opposed to just with, the virus?
- How many of the new infections are simply due to the colder weather, as opposed to supposedly imprudent behavior?
Without the above information, “hot spot” claims may be nothing but panic-porn propaganda.
What we can know for sure is that left-wing politicians don’t appear to believe their own Branch Covidian dogma. As Fox News reported Monday, after reminding us that earlier this year “a federal judge said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General Letitia James, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio ‘exceeded’ their executive limits by limiting worship services and condoning mass protests as the state continues to reopen from coronavirus restrictions”:
“Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio could have just as easily discouraged protests, short of condemning their message, in the name of public health and exercised discretion to suspend enforcement for public safety reasons instead of encouraging what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules,” the judge said. “They could have also been silent. But by acting as they did, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio sent a clear message that mass protests are deserving of preferential treatment.”
Thomas More Society Special Counsel Christopher Ferrara celebrated the decision and called Cuomo’s executive orders a “sham” that “went right out the window as soon as he and Mayor de Blasio saw a mass protest movement they favored taking to the streets by the thousands.”
And because it’s “Covid restrictions for thee but not for me (and my supporters)” is why leftist state governments are blatantly violating the Constitution. You might be able to make a case for some pandemic-oriented restrictions, limited in stringency and/or duration. What you absolutely cannot do is discriminate ideologically or religiously among different kinds of First Amendment exercise.
Yet this is what Cuomo, de Blasio, and other power-mad left-wing politicians have done — as they sicken our republic in the name of fighting a disease.
