In a macabre move, the state of New York has decided to create a poster as a reminder of the deadly pandemic that claimed the lives of more than 32,000 New Yorkers.
Governor Andrew Cuomo(D-NY) tweeted a teaser image of the “New York Tough” poster available for pre-order through the governor’s website. The poster is being provided “at cost” the Governor’s website assures the interested buyer. Yes, for just $14.95, you too can remember that Andrew Cuomo issued an Executive Order that mandated that COVID-positive nursing home residents had to be readmitted.
The Governor wrote, “I love history. I love poster art. Poster art is something they did in the early 1900s, late 1800s, when they had to communicate their whole platform on one piece of paper. Over the past few years I’ve done my own posters that capture that feeling. I did a new one for what we went through with COVID and I think the general shape is familiar to you. We went up the mountain, we curved the mountain, we came down the other side and these are little telltale signs that, to me, represent what was going on.”
The Sea of Division. The Boyfriend Cliff. The Sun On The Other Side. See it all for yourself.
Pre-order the #NewYorkTough poster here:
— Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) July 14, 2020
Here’s a close-up of the poster:
It’s got almost everything on there–from the Europeans flying into New York which began the spread of the virus to the inmate-made hand sanitizer to Governor Cuomo’s admonitions to not make the pandemic political to President Trump as the man in the moon saying, “It’s just the flu.”
Noticeably missing are police officers among the first responders, and any reference to nursing homes.
It’s all just an oversight, I’m sure.
But people on social media are blasting Governor Cuomo for the absolutely tone-deaf and ghoulish commemorative poster.
Janice Dean of Fox News, who lost both in-laws to COVID in separate New York nursing home faciliities, noticed that there were no nursing homes on the poster despite the significant number of deaths that occurred in those types of healthcare facilities.
They forgot to draw all the nursing homes he helped infect with Corona.
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) July 13, 2020
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1282733812363988993?s=20
And let’s not forget, that New York was seeding the virus to other areas.
New York’s per capita death rate is 4X higher than the U.S. average, and researchers have found that travel from New York City became the primary source of infections across America. https://t.co/dhqs5ISnRo
— Ben Goldey (@BenGoldey) July 14, 2020
But ultimately, this poster is just in really poor taste.
I mean this with 0% snark: how is this not wildly offensive? This is an artful monument to death and tragedy being sold by the state. I’m legit perplexed. https://t.co/GPsCIVEl6m
— Senator Zellnor Y. Myrie 米维 (@zellnor4ny) July 14, 2020
You and me both.
