Living inside the Hot Spot and bubble which is the New York City tri-state area and Westchester County, which has 2 of the highest number of Coronavirus cases in the country, in New Rochelle and Yonkers, hasn’t changed the political views of most of us. While all of us are concerned about the wellbeing of our family and friends, and most of us in metro-NYC are not satisfied with the with the lack of testing, the lack of respirators, and lack of protective gear for our first responders, that is where the similarities end.
Two different views on Coronavirus in this country come from:
Mike Francesa, radio talk show host, WFAN. Mike is the legendary sports caster for WFAN, 660 AM in NYC, and was part of the Mike and the Mad Dog show, which ruled NYC sports talk for 20 years. Mike is now cutting back on his drive time schedule but can still be heard on weekdays for an hour at 5pm.
Francesa, who lives on Long Island, voted for President Donald Trump and has supported him over the past three year on the air. But as Long Island and all of the NYC area and suburbs has taken the hit from COVID-19 most of all, Francesca has become dissatisfied with the response to Coronavirus in our region.
Last week, Francesa went on a rant about the lack of response to the virus from Washington. “It’s reached a point now where our leaders are trying to placate us. We’re watching one thing happen in our city on the 11 o’clock news every night. We’re watching people die, and now we know people who died. And we’re not seeing one or two people die now in our neighborhood. We’re seeing them die by the tens and twenties by the day.”
Francesa wants the government, and the military, to treat the virus like the natural disasters and hurricanes that have landed across the country. “Get the stuff made, get the stuff where it needs to go, and get the boots on the ground! Treat this like the crisis it is! That’s what’s wrong here. There’s a disconnect. In this case, I really just think they’ve been slow to move. We’re losing a lot of people, we’re helpless.”
The President’s recent comments that 200,000-total death from Coronavirus would be a positive outcome, was unacceptable to Mike. “Not in our country. That’s not good. That’s not what America’s about,” he said, his voice rising. “I can’t live with that. I don’t want to hear that. We’ve gotta do better than that. That’s all there is to it
“I would like to see—and what I’ve been saying for weeks—is I would just like to see a response that we would see if this were a hurricane, if this were an earthquake, if this were a natural disaster, because it kind of is,” said Francesa. “I just thought we should see that from the beginning.”
Others don’t blame the President at all. Former Yonkers City Councilwoman Joan Gronowski, a democrat, recently posted on Facebook criticizing those blaming Trump for everything and asking for the country to come together and rally together to help each other and defeat the virus.
Gronowski, who was an independent voice on the city council and always told it like is, wrote a letter to Yonkers Rising concerning this topic
“I am a lifelong Yonkers resident and registered Democrat for all of my voting life. My first experiences with rude and negative comments concerning Donald Trump were from people closest to me. When Mr. Trump was a candidate for the office of President of the United States, they would rudely ask how I could possibly vote for him. They had no interest in nor did they have an answer to the issues I brought forth with the alternative candidates. I thus became desensitized to similar comments when Mr. Trump was elected in November 2016 and through the following three years. Or so I thought. The Coronavirus outbreak has created an even worse atmosphere of vitriolic comments in the media and especially on social media sites. I have seen some postings with some of the vilest images of President Trump, unbelievably, often with the same individual interspersing posts about Jesus and the Lord.
“The virus has taken a tragic toll worldwide. Our nurses and doctors are on the front lines every day, and tragically have themselves become victims. Our Firefighters and Police have suffered heartbreaking losses. Our military personnel have suffered. Our teamsters who collect our refuse – all at risk. The people who are at the cash registers in supermarkets, grocery stores, pharmacies etc. – all at risk every day.
“None of us were ever the same after 9/11. But in the aftermath of that terrible day, we banded together as a nation and made changes to try and prevent future attacks as best as we could. We are now in a war with an unseen enemy that can attack any one of us – our parents, children, grandchildren, friends – and yet some people have the energy to spew hatred toward the President of the United States.
“There is much that might have been done in previous years to have better prepared for this outbreak. I am not writing to throw stones at anyone. In March 2015 – almost two years before President Trump took office – Bill Gates gave a speech about the world coming to terms with the potential of a pandemic largely ignored in US and around the world. He noted that the movie images of teams of epidemiologists rushing in to save the day were the stuff of Hollywood.
“Speaking of Hollywood movies, the film CONTAGION seems to closely resemble the pandemic we are now suffering. The film was released in 2011, and is prefaced by a quote from Joshua Lederberg, Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine, “The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus,” wrote Gronowski.
Even though Gronowski and Francesa are coming at this issue from different sides and with different views, I find myself agreeing with both.
