Upstate New York's parochial reaction reflects irresponsibility of the past

Parochial and short-sighted.

That was the disappointing reaction by local leaders in western New York to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to redistribute 20 percent of available ventilators from upstate to serve the COVID-19 crisis in the New York City region.

Right after the same community leaders proclaimed we need to rely on each other, they proved such sentiment goes only as far as some mysterious upstate-downstate boundary. After all, we’re only talking about people “downstate,” and of course our survival is more important than theirs.

Congressmen to State Legislators, County Executives to radio talk show hosts, and community activists to social media influencers should be ashamed of the damaging message they sent under the guise of dauntless defenders of western New York. Their predictably indignant responses just widened the divide between upstate and downstate.

Disregard for others

Most importantly, they should be ashamed of a perceived lack of humanity in an unquestionable time of crisis. To immediately say “we’re not going to share our resources” with a region of the state screaming for ventilators and personal protective equipment is unthinkingly shallow, thin-skinned, and selfish.

Instead of posturing to assure voters or listeners that you have their best interests at heart, why not provide the data proving upstate doesn’t have a single resource to spare? This crisis is ALL about science and numbers – the data. To say you’re not going to share any resources to save lives without quantifying the statement appears to devalue life itself. It goes against any concept of mutual aid and it’s just not neighborly.

I get it. I agree there are economic and political imbalances in our state. But this is an immediate crisis. This is an EMERGENCY. What part of that doesn’t translate? EVERYONE has a stake in this – in physical, emotional, and mental health – in economics, education, family, and the future. It is NOT time to be territorial and selfish.

Our community’s official reaction should have been cooperative and apologetic in spirit and facts. Resistance should have been accompanied by numbers of ventilators and projected need. Instead, our leaders sent the message they would defend upstate from the Cuomo at the gate at all costs. In the process, they cemented in his mind that when the chips are down, we refuse to help.

Like THAT’S not going to cost us down the road.

Whether you like Cuomo or not, you have to acknowledge his leadership. He filled a vacuum in New York City where the mayor failed to lead. He’s been the junkyard dog the state needs to garner resources for what may be the worst to come. And he’s proven (at least temporarily) he can be human, perhaps even vulnerable, at a critical time when we are absorbing psychological, economic, educational, and health impacts that promise to scar the foreseeable future.

Revisit the past

It’s in that same future where there will be plenty of government defensiveness and political finger-pointing. This will probably result in a lot of finger-throwing.

We didn’t just get caught with our pants down. We didn’t have pants on. And there were no pants within reach. If it weren’t for effective backchannels within the emergency services industry, between public and private sectors, within healthcare, this crisis would be an unmitigated disaster.

Post 9-11, the government at every level failed to listen to their own emergency preparedness experts. Instead, money was thrown at failed attempts to establish things like unified national communications and computing systems. Today private industry, not the government, continues efforts to fill the void. Throughout this crisis, the shining examples continue to be those in the private healthcare industry and emergency services. We allegedly have no resources in western New York, but somehow volunteers, retirees, and nurses head downstate to help.

Emergency preparedness experts, years after 9-11, lobbied the government for the maintenance of equipment, supplies, and consumables. Committees and working groups were formed, entire domestic terrorism cottage industries sprung up, training standards and paperwork flooded organizations – all designed to prepare for active shooters, IEDs, biohazards, and yes, pandemics.

We knew we weren't prepared

It’s not just time for assessment of where we went wrong, what we could have done better, and what we need to do in the future to be better prepared. It’s time for some moral clarity about the present by reflecting on the ineptness of the past, so we’re better prepared for the future.

The inevitable fallout from this crisis will bear out three truths:

1)     The government failed to listen and fulfill logistical and material recommendations of emergency preparedness experts;

2)     Community leaders in government and healthcare failed to follow pandemic planning;

3)     Specific governments lied about preparedness (and continue to do so) as in planning, logistics and operations, and in the alleged training of personnel.

COVID 19 is no different from any shockers of our past. Within two years after the shooting at Columbine, we let kids wear trench coats again. We never listened to Israeli terrorism experts’ recommendations we outlaw backpacks. We always get too comfortable too quickly. We shift priorities to lesser, immediate concerns. We, as in our government, make promises to ourselves down the road and never deliver.

Bureaucrats and professional politicians make it look like we’re prepared on paper, but they all know it’s a fa?ade. As always, they’d rather believe the fantasy than the reality.

Here we are again. Too late.