Cuomo calls for aide to states and locales, vaccinations for all.

And a bill to force firms that take govt money to hire back all workers.

And if a successful vaccine is developed all companies that can do it need to be allowed freely to produce the same vaccine, and the production method needs to be shared with them all for free, all across the globe.

How to do the job

Cuomo at his daily press briefing on TV just got tested for the virus to show the public how easy, quick, and painless it is.

He says in NY anybody with symptoms or who has been in contact with somebody who tested positive can get a test for free.

He and his medical advisors think lots of people who should get tested are not doing it.

Hence the personal demo.

A doctor in full PPE (it looks like a hazmat suit, only less heavy and more blue) stuck a swab about three or four inches up a nostril as cameras flashed.

And that was it.

He said it was painless and he had no discomfort, but I figure that’s not entirely true.

It looks nasty, and I’ve read if it's not actually painful then at least “there will be some discomfort”.

New York is the number one donor state. Kentucky the number three taker.

Cuomo to McConnell on MSNBC just now, New York every year is the number one donor state to the federal pot. Kentucky every year is a taker state. New York is a giver. Kentucky is a taker. The number three taker in the whole country.

New York bails out Kentucky every year, and has been doing it for decades. Every year, New York bails out the taker, Kentucky. Every year.

He keeps returning to McConnell's remark that money for the states for Coronavirus would be a repugnant thing, a blue state bailout, and states should just declare bankruptcy.

He says he advised New York state's two federal senators not to pass this most recent relief bill unless it included money for states and locales.

He says they passed it on a verbal assurance from Republicans that money for states and locales would be in a future bill.

And he says that as soon as the bill passed McConnell went public telling the states they should declare bankruptcy, there have been giant and plentiful federal bailouts of giant and rich corporations but there will be none for states and locales.

Mail in ballots in New York

For legal and state constitutional reasons, Cuomo can't just mail all registered voters in New York state a mail in ballot.

But he can mail them all applications for a mail in ballot, postage prepaid. So he has done that.

Cuomo to McConnell: Pass that bill. I dare you.

Noting it would require passage of a federal law to allow states to declare bankruptcy, that no such thing had ever happened in American history, and that it would be a clear signal to the markets and to the world that the US is in absolutely awful trouble, Cuomo dared McConnell to put such a bill on The Boob's desk and tell him to sign it.

He repeatedly dared him to do it.

Yesterday he pointed out that states taking this advice would wreak havoc with bond markets and leave hell to pay for future state efforts to borrow.

MSNBC just now.

McConnell to blue states: Fuck you and your Democrat voters and Democrat virus dead

McConnell says states should declare bankruptcy because federal funding for states that went in deep dealing with the virus would be a "blue state bailout".

Why he thinks it better that the state's creditors - mostly banks and funds, at a guess - should get stuck by surprise paying for New York's public services in this crisis than federal taxpayers, who would hardly be surprised, is a mystery.

Well, not much of a mystery, given his own words on the matter.

Blowing giant holes in the bond market with harmful echoes all the way down to depositors and wrecking New York's credit for a good while are better than adding a few tens of billions to the long term federal tax bill?

Well, sure.

McConnell is just seing this as an opportunity to crush unions, especially public employee unions, and their pension funds in New York, while forcing the state to lower taxes and services and regulatory restrictions on businesses and individuals, down closer to the levels found in red states.

And think of California. What luck! We can force California to reduce regulations on cars sold there, affecting the rules for cars sold in many other states across the country!

And that's just for openers!

Cuomo furiously just now on MSNBC denounced McConnell's remarks, pointing out that Kentucky gets more in federal money than it pays to the federal government, while New York for decades has paid more to the feds than it has gotten back.

Kentucky, he said, has been on permanent federal bailout for many, many years.

And not New York.

'The Marie Antoinette of the Senate': GOP Rep. King slams McConnell for suggesting states go bankrupt

Meanwhile Republicans stall and stall in order to delay and stave off further legislative relief efforts in DC.

Pelosi sidelines plan for proxy voting amid coronavirus, after GOP backlash

Cuomo not buying it. Anyway, not yet.

Lately it has been suggested that when the number of those needing ventilators exceeds the supply ventilators should be take off old people actually using them and given to younger people.

Today at his briefing Cuomo clearly and repeatedly rejected any idea of treating the lives of older people as less valuable than others and of prioritizing the needs of the younger over the needs of the elderly.

He said the goal in New York is and will remain to provide a ventilator to all who need one and proper care to all who need it.

But when or if it can't be done?

California scrambles to avoid Covid-19's worst-case scenario

They are locked down since Friday and short of everything.

Doctors and hospital administrators are hurrying to draft policies on how to handle decisions on triage and hospital beds in the coming weeks.

“We don’t have much time,” a Los Angeles emergency room physician, Dr Marc Futernick, told the LA Times. “These are decisions that we need to make really soon before we are in the throes of the tsunami.”

Trump's inability to accept harsh reality worsens dangerously over time

Remember when he said there were only 15 cases in the country and the number would very quickly fall to zero?

Remember when he said for no reason at all that the virus would go away as the weather warmed?

Remember his apparently persisting conviction that a vaccine will be available much sooner than in a year or 18 months?

Remember his recent references to existing drugs that help with other conditions like malaria as possible cures for this virus for no better reason than that some right wing fantasist says so?

So-called "anecdotal evidence"?

Well, now the Duce wants everything opened again and back to normal by Easter, apparently echoing Hannity or some other right wing blatherer that "the cure is getting worse than the disease".

And he has claimed that we will pretty much have the virus beat by then and all over the country the churches will be packed for Easter.

Public celebrations for Holy Week, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter are canceled

Trump's hope for an Easter reopening clashes with coronavirus reality

Of course, the lockdowns, aimed both at slowing and diminishing the spread of the virus, have not been his doing, anyway, but have come on the orders of state governors and city mayors dealing with reality and not fantasy and prioritizing public health over economic concerns.

But this is perhaps going to become a partisan issue and a feds vs states issue if Trump and the more Trumpist Republicans push harder on this even as the daily numbers continue so visibly to worsen.

Cuomo has a much better grip on the likely timeline than the orange moron.

He thinks the new cases curve for New York State will peak around or shortly after Easter, and then as the curve comes down medical resources and people can be moved from New York to the next hot spot, the state or area with the highest of the still rising curves.

And then to the next, and so on, over coming months.

But today Cuomo agreed that individuals who have recovered from the virus can certainly return to work, perhaps as a concession to Trump's fantasy talk.

No explanation how that would happen.

How do you go back to work at a closed restaurant, movie theater, or mall?

Cuomo doing the president's job

MSNBC has been covering the daily press conferences of the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and his authority, competence, intelligence, and knowledge have been on display for all the nation to see, for hours at a time, each day.

He does not lie, he does not talk nonsense, he does not blame political enemies, he does not take personal credit for the achievements of others, and his concern is dealing with the crisis and not childishly protecting his ego.

And he does not go out of his way to pointedly refer to it as "the Chinese virus".

Cuomo's role and performance at his briefings are admirable.

Trump's briefings have followed Cuomo's and Trump's worthlessness could not be more starkly contrasted.