There are more new coronavirus cases in TX and FL than Italy at its peak.

Back in March, every other coronavirus story started with Italy.

Look at all the cases in Italy.

Look at all the deaths in Italy.

Italy is the center of the pandemic.

Italy is in dire straights.

Italy waited too long to lockdown their residents and now they’re paying the price. 

At its peak, COVID-19 infected over 6,000 people a day in Italy.

So I hope the newspapers and media outlets are churning out endless headlines about Florida and Texas now.

Here in New York, we saw over 10,000 new cases a day back in April because we were unprepared. The government ignored the writing on the wall for a few weeks longer than they should have, and when they finally read it, the response was too weak. The numbers skyrocketed because we didn’t learn our lesson from Italy, and NYC was depicted as the most dangerous place in the US all over cable news. Friends and family from across the country asked me about bodies piling up and outdoor hospitals.

But we got it under control. We’re under 400 new cases a day. NYC has a <1% infection rate. I don’t know how long these numbers will last now that the city is opening up again, but everyone on the subway is wearing a mask, restaurants are taking social distancing seriously with their outdoor seating arrangements, and testing is free and widely available.

If you live in Texas or Florida (or anywhere really), you have to be upset at your government for not learning from New York the way we didn’t learn from Italy. In Italy, the peak was March 20th. In New York, the peak was April 14th. We had less than a month for the situation to settle in. The rest of the country has had three and a half since Italy, and two and a half since New York.

There is no excuse. None of this had to happen and the onlyreason the caseloads in Florida and Texas almost four months after we knew exactly what would happen are now higher than the peak caseload was in Italy is money. The federal government doesn’t want to give it to you to keep you safe and local government wants you to go out and generate it to keep the most abusive segments of the population happy.

Capitalism is COVID-19’s best friend.

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