#Cuomo, de Blasio both ignore science, sense in latest lockdown moves

On Sunday, Mayor Bill de Blasio asked the state for permission to lock down neighborhoods experiencing a spike in COVID-19 cases. The plan would have closed all nonessential businesses in nine zip codes where COVID-19 positive test results exceed 3 percent. Schools, somehow no longer deemed “essential,” would also have closed.

During his news conference the next day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved part of the plan, closing schools a day earlier than de Blasio had requested but keeping nonessential businesses open. Hizzoner then gave his own news conference later in the afternoon, announcing that business closures would happen, after all.

It’s such a delight for New Yorkers to watch our mayor and governor continue to squabble amid a pandemic. What’s amazing is that they can oppose each other, even as they’re both completely wrong.

De Blasio’s plan was ludicrous. For one thing, there are no walls around neighborhoods. If someone resides in a locked-down zip code, she can easily travel to an open area. Will officials require businesses to ask for ID before admitting customers? Do New Yorkers really want to live in a city where they can be asked for their papers? And wouldn’t the closures cause more, not fewer, people from COVID-19 hot zones to fan out to other, open neighborhoods?

Cuomo’s schools-only plan is just as absurd. We know that kids face a minuscule risk from the virus. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that babies, kids and teens account for roughly 5 percent of all confirmed cases, and 0.06 percent of all reported deaths — less than one-tenth of 1 percent. We also know kids transmit the virus at a lower rate than adults.

Plus, Gotham public schools only opened for in-person learning last week, certainly not enough time to show that they are the cause of any spread, despite ­Cuomo’s unscientific claim that the “virus mainly transmits” in schools.

The plan seems more like punishment to these communities than aid. Private schools in these areas also must close, even if they’ve had no cases whatsoever. You’ve been bad, de Blasio and Cuomo are saying, and you’re going to be put in a time out.

Meanwhile, good behavior isn’t rewarded. Park Slope’s 0.31 percent positive rate doesn’t mean our restaurants get to open at a higher capacity for indoor dining, nor do our kids get to go to school full-time. We continue to exist in government-mandated limbo, no matter how low our numbers get.

Then there’s the question of the accuracy of the numbers. I live in Park Slope, and the social-media boards are buzzing with people getting frequent tests: “I’m seeing friends this weekend, and we all want to get tested beforehand; where should I go?” “The schools didn’t mandate testing, but we want to test our son before school starts anyway. Where should we test?”

Park Slope has had 10,265 tests per 100,000 residents. Areas of Manhattan are even higher. The Upper West Side has had 11,857 per 100,000; the West Village, 12,250; the East Village, 13,404.

Meanwhile, in my mother’s immigrant, working-class enclave of Bensonhurst, one of the nine locked-down neighborhoods, no one gets tested for the hell of it. People there get tested when they have symptoms, ­period.

Their test rate is 4,581 per 100,000 residents, less than half that of Park Slope’s. Is Bensonhurst’s 4.2 percent positive rate worrying? Maybe. But officials don’t seem to be taking into ­account the fact that its testing rate is much lower than that of rich, white, highly educated neighborhoods.

The leadership’s dishonesty is the worst part. Cuomo celebrates his performance in a self-adulatory new book, but did we defeat the novel coronavirus? Of course not.

We can’t keep the numbers at zero cases for ­reopening anything. Our only option to get to zero cases is to shut down indefinitely; no one can abide that. But in the meantime, schools are the governor’s convenient punching bag.

The point of locking down was supposed to be to “flatten the curves,” to allow hospitals to get a handle on upticks. We did that. Months ago. What’s the point of locking down now? De Blasio, Cuomo and their hysterical media allies keep talking about “cases” without mentioning that cases don’t mean deaths or even hospitalizations. On reopened college campuses, for example, the explosion of cases is just that: positive test results not ­associated with any serious illness.

A “casedemic” doesn’t necessarily overwhelm health workers and health systems. Keeping kids out of school isn’t scientific. It’s an act of sadistic superstition.

Twitter: @Karol