Clueless “Handy Andy Cuomo”, Dressed in his Casual Best, Helps Clean Subway Cars

Donning blue gloves, a mask, white shirt, khaki pants, brown shoes, and (perhaps) leather jacket, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo helped “clean NYC subways during a tour of MTA” facilities.

No one could blame New Yorkers if after seeing the photo op and reading Cuomo’s comments, they went from being amused to getting angry.

Seeing Handy Andy, in some of his casual best, standing with “five workers in hazmat suits” was just plain funny.  Some of his “common man banter” made it even funnier.

“Do you guys need a hand?” asked the governor.

“We’re good.” was a reply.

Undeterred, Cuomo grabbed a hose, squatted down, and began spraying disinfectant underneath a train seat.

Andrew signed off to the men with, “God bless you. Thank you so much for doing this guys.  Thank you.”

It’s what he said later that’s likely to wipe the smile off the faces of New Yorkers who, for the last few months have been riding these underground Petri dishes.

At a briefing following his look at me moment, Gov. Cuomo, referring to the cleaning process said, “They have to go through the train with a misting device and spray disinfectant literally on every surface.”

He continued in what seemed newly discovered wonderment, “There are reports that say the virus can live two or three days on some surfaces like stainless steel. You look at the inside of a subway car, you look at the rails, the bars, they’re all stainless steel.”

Two things:

First, Cuomo seemed unaware there was so much stainless steel in those cars, leading cynical New Yorkers to ask when was the last time — if ever — they’d seen a pic of him riding below the streets of Manhattan?

Second and more importantly, the above-mentioned breakout study was made very public over a month before Cuomo took any official steps to mandate mask-wearing and social distancing on NYC subways.   Worse still, almost 8 weeks have passed before a seemingly clueless Cuomo used that report’s critical data to implement this common sense, disinfectant strategy.

Sadly, for so many living in the nation’s epicenter of the virus, Governor Cuomo’s deadly, too late to the crisis management continues.  And in retrospect, this ridiculous looking photo isn’t so funny anymore.

PowerInbox