New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday that, after his 111th daily coronavirus briefing on Friday, he’ll call time on the practice and only hold them “as needed.” The press conferences started on February 29, nominally as a way to provide regular updates on the crisis that the state would eventually become the epicenter of. But by some combination of Cuomo’s own emphasis of his personal life and the media’s treatment of it, the events turned into something else entirely.
He and his brother Chris discussed haircuts and hallucinations about their father Mario, who held the same job as Andrew; tabloids stepped in to wonder whether Andrew has nipple rings. The Cuomo brothers ribbed each other about who their mother, Matilda, liked best, and she did a Mother’s Day interview with Elle. Vanity Fair’s profile of the governor came amid the spate of questions about his dating life. The wave of tabloid coverage was extensive enough that it eventually included his brother’s wife’s sister.
Aside from the celebrity-like fanfare, and the dubious coining of “Cuomosexual,” this period has elevated Cuomo’s national profile. The briefings were broadcast across the country, and Donald Trump directed his tweets Cuomo’s way. As his popularity soared, there were presidential murmurs.
“That was a long journey,” Cuomo said on Wednesday. “It was about 42 days up the mountain and about 66 days down the mountain. Who’s counting? I was counting every day. We’ve climbed the mountain and we’re on the other side.” That’s the kind of communal language he’s often used, and that has helped propel him to this kind of star power. But while Cuomo touted New York as a success story—“I hope people learn from what we accomplish here in New York,” he also said on Wednesday—his actual handling of the crisis remains the subject of investigations. As of this writing, 30,722 people in the state have died from coronavirus, according to data from New York Times. In that way, perhaps he really has become a celebrity over the course of the crisis: It doesn’t feel like the time for a victory lap, but he’s taking one anyway.
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