Social distance

We did a double-take Friday when Mayor de Blasio admitted the last time he spoke with his health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, was “a couple of days ago” and predicted their next chat would take place “this weekend.”

Sporadic chatting might be an acceptable level of communication between friends or between the mayor and, say, his Department of Design and Construction. But this is the mayor and the city’s doctor. In the thick of a global pandemic. That’s killed 20,000 New Yorkers and rising since March.

De Blasio’s relationship with Barbot has been strained in part because Health Department officials have tattled to reporters that de Blasio resisted their expert advice in the crisis’ early days, and in part because Barbot has seemed less than on the ball at a time when falling off the ball means people dying. Her rodent-rear spat with the cops hasn’t helped either.

Whatever the cause, there’s zero excuse for a chief executive and his top health person to fail to communicate constantly as a crisis rages.

If their relationship is so broken that they can’t work together, then it’s time for the mayor to take decisive action: Dismiss Barbot and find a commissioner he trusts. History is littered with tales of leaders who’ve switched generals mid-war.

As City Council Speaker Corey Johnson aptly put it in a hearing Friday, New Yorkers can’t abide City Hall’s public display of dysfunction “at a time when New Yorkers desperately need to have confidence in their city government.”

Confidence, and competence.