THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN. AND NOW THEY MUST BE PUNISHED: New Yorkers Must Be Punished: A Modest Proposal.

Don’t the New Yorkers who fled deserve a reward from those who selfishly did not, for having reduced the city’s population and made the disease harder to spread? New York has had one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world; in New York City, things have been even worse. Maybe things would have been nigh-apocalyptic had the city population not thinned. In fact, maybe the leavers deserve a kind of party for their contribution to the city’s health, if not remuneration from those who stayed.

On the other hand, we learned later in the pandemic that New York City itself seeded coronavirus to the rest of the country. Maybe the rest of the country should hit up the famously wealthy urban center for some coronavirus reparations? It seems only fair.

Of course, the smart thing to have done would have been not to confine everyone to his apartment in New York City, but to confine New York City to itself. Yes, that’s right: a citywide quarantine, the placing of a Simpsons Movie–esque dome over the city right around this time last year (preferably after I fled coronavirus-free, thank you very much). That would have had a much greater effect in mitigating the spread of coronavirus than anything Governor Andrew Cuomo did.

I’m actually kind of surprised that Mayor Bane didn’t try it.

(Classical reference, inspired by earlier, funnier New York mayor, in headline.)