Hochul’s Anti-COVID Hokum

Gov. Hochul says she may impose yet more mask mandates, rather than rolling back the ones already in place, apparently because, as she recently told reporters, “I’m not going to feel comfortable for many more months to say that we have this under control.” It’s bizarre, since the data clearly show that the worst of COVID is behind us.

As of Tuesday, 69.8 percent of New Yorkers are vaccinated, while the curves for both hospitalizations and deaths have flattened out, with the seven-day averages at around 2,250 and 40, respectively — far below the peaks of spring 2020 and this past winter. Serious COVID cases are almost exclusively among the unvaxxed with pre-existing conditions.

Yes, the virus will keep on causing some tragic deaths, but not at pandemic levels. The only thing threatening to overwhelm health-care facilities is the staffing shortages in the wake of her vaccine mandate.

On Tuesday, the gov even expanded her vax mandate to include staff in Office of Mental Health and Office for People with Developmental Disabilities hospital settings. Workers must get at least one dose of the vaccine by Nov. 1. These orders are perfectly legal and logical — but if they wind up compromising care, they won’t prove very prudent.

She’s already imposed a mask mandate for schoolkids, though the science shows it does no good (and likely some harm). How far will she go in pandering to groundless hysteria?

New York needs to get back to normalcy, yet its governor seems intent on needlessly prolonging the crisis atmosphere.