New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily coronavirus briefings have become must-see TV
In a city where the chilling silence of obscenely deserted streets is broken only by the wail of ambulances, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily COVID-19 briefings have struck a chord.
World
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There’s not a lot of joy in New York right now, so we’re taking the smiles where we can.
Our teenagers have declared detente after years of blueing and are sometimes even laughing together, locked-in as they are for the foreseeable future.
In the city, where the chilling silence of obscenely deserted streets is broken only by the wail of ambulances, it comes at 7pm, as apartment dwellers holler and cheer, even waving cowbells outside their windows to thank frontline workers.
And there are even some decent chuckles coming from the television, breaking up the constant misery of cable news, which you can’t look away from, even though you know you should.
It can be hard to turn off the news but it’s been helping my soul to switch to streaming old episodes of The Office and Veep.
Some of these lighter moments also come from the goofy exchanges between Governor Andrew Cuomo and his brother Chris, a CNN anchor who has been fighting a relatively mild case of COVID-19 while quarantined in his Upper East Side basement.
The Cuomos have long seemed like a down and dirty, Queens-raised version of the Kennedys, and the now-single Andrew was even married to one of Bobby Kennedy’s daughters.
America of course does political dynasties like nowhere else, and their father Mario Cuomo was also a New York governor, with bridges and roads named for him.
Andrew Cuomo’s morning press briefing from Albany has become must-watch viewing and combines grim updates and warnings with sentimental New York philosophising.
“We’re going to get through it because we are New York, and because we’ve dealt with a lot of things,” he has said.
“Because we are New York tough. We are tough. You have to be tough. This place makes you tough. But it makes you tough in a good way.”
Occasionally, he is also interviewed at night by his little brother, and the pair have bickered over who is their mother’s favourite and who broke curfew the most.
This week, when Chris showed a photo of a young Andrew dressed for disco, the Governor was a grouchy counterpoint to his grinning brother and threatened to walk out.
It’s cheesy, silly viewing, and sections of oh-so-serious American media are publicly frowning about it. But we’ll take any light we can get at the moment, so let’s hope they keep it coming.