We pushed the plan forward, and on April 30, Mayor de Blasio decided to support it and joined me for the daily briefing when I announced we were going to shut down the system for four hours every night between 1:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M. when ridership was at the lowest, and we’d offer buses or for-hire vans to provide transport to any essential workers who needed to travel during this time. The entire system would be disinfected every twenty-four hours.
Our subway cleaning plan went into operation, and surprise, surprise, it delivered as promised. Every subway car and bus is disinfected every twenty-four hours, and the subway system is cleaner and safer than it has ever been. It took the COVID crisis to clean the New York City subway system and to really help the homeless. Pat Foye, the MTA chairman, and Sarah Feinberg, the MTA president, did a really great job.
It was an important lesson for me and for New Yorkers. We can still do big, bold things; we just have to dare to try. Any New Yorker will tell you that the conditions of the trains, subway cars, and subway stations have been unacceptable for many decades. The plight of the homeless in the subway was a daily reminder of urban deterioration and human suffering. Most New Yorkers had given up. It made no sense, but it seemed impossible to change. The idea of disinfecting the system was almost ludicrous. If you couldn’t clean the system, how could it now be disinfected? No one believed it was possible. They were wrong. Nothing is impossible. You just have to be willing to try.
MAY 1 | 3,942 NEW CASES | 10,993 HOSPITALIZED | 289 DEATHS
“Our past actions changed the path’s trajectory. Our present actions will determine the future trajectory. You tell me what we do today; I will tell you the number of people sick tomorrow.”
NEW YORK’S CASES WERE DROPPING while many other states were still in denial, embracing the president’s rhetoric rather than following the facts and science. The president’s “liberate” supporters were demonstrating across the nation and across New York State. Everyone wanted out of the house, and everyone wanted to get back to work.
I have learned something as I have gotten older: Ultimately, the truth wins out. I was more impatient as a young man and wanted to cut to the chase immediately. But sometimes situations have to unfold. The president’s denial strategy was being exposed for the fraud it was even if his most devoted apostles were still with him. While the president had some early political success in selling his message of “liberation,” the virus was unimpressed and took its course. The president’s message was totally counter to science, and it was only a matter of time before the virus won.
Trump was very good at playing to emotion. Indeed, he became president by playing to people’s fear. He knew that he could increase political pressure on those politicians who were slower to reopen their states. It was a full-court press from the White House and all of Trump’s allies. They claimed they had polling information saying the public wanted to reopen immediately. I had no doubt that might be true. Of course people wanted to reopen immediately—so did I—but that didn’t mean it was right.
Trump sells the product most easily purchased by the largest number of people. In this case, “Let’s get back to life now” was essentially his slogan. However, it was also shortsighted and wrong. By now it was clear to me that a reckless reopening would increase the spread of the virus, which in the medium and long term would actually hurt the economy. Trump was playing a very irresponsible strategy of short-term gain for long-term pain. I didn’t even think that the gain would last until the election in November. But that was his calculus. And Americans would die on his gamble.
There was never a choice between public health and economic progress. The path forward always had to prioritize both. A plan that focused only on public health or only on economic progress was doomed to fail. And reopening only to see the virus increase would devastate the financial markets and further cause stock market decline. But I felt as if I were talking to myself. Everyone wanted to hear that we could reopen quickly. I wouldn’t say it or do it even if I risked losing public support. I believed this was a situation that would be judged by the history books rather than pundits. We had been to hell and back, and I was not willing to jeopardize our progress or dishonor the lives lost.
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SO MANY UNDERLYING problems had been exposed by COVID. Some of them would have to be solved immediately, or else they would inevitably recur. The PPE shortage was understandable only if one accepted that our government and health-care system were incompetent. Why didn’t our nation have the capacity to manufacture PPE as a matter of national security? Public health is a matter of national security.
I said publicly that the country should learn these lessons immediately and develop American industries that could provide all the materials lacking during COVID. With no response from the federal government, I announced that New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode
