What is the president waiting for, and why is he hoarding — or let’s be charitable and say husbanding — his resources? Must the death toll in New York prove so calamitous he needs no further proof? Is he trying to make an example of his former home?

“I will take personal responsibility for transporting the 20,000 ventilators anywhere in this country that they want, once we are past our apex,” Cuomo said. “But don’t leave them sitting in a stockpile, and say, ‘Well, we’re going to wait and see how we allocate them across the country.’ That’s not how this works.”

It would be one thing if other states were in the same dire position as New York. But they aren’t. We have 10 times the number of cases as Washington and eight times that of California. New Yorkers are now locked in place, waiting for the wave to come. As of Tuesday night, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, recommends that New Yorkers self-quarantine if they leave the state. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is ordering anyone flying in from New York to self-quarantine for 14 days upon landing.

I guess Trump likes the numbers where they are. I have news for him: They won’t stay that way. The idea that New York is an exception rather than a harbinger is madness.

The rest of the country may regard New York as a black hole of need. But in fact the opposite has always been true; we’re forever sweeping more into the federal till than we receive in services. In 2018, according to the state comptroller’s office, we gave $26.6 billion more to Washington than we got back, ranking us dead last for federal benefits.

Now, we finally have a native New Yorker in the White House to do something about this discrepancy. Instead, he’s the worst offender, and this time the consequences will be lethal.