Cuomo and de Blasio are fine with restaurants going bankrupt because of the pandemic, but they’ll give celebrities a free pass for a pointless awards show

Throughout New York, businesses, particularly bars and restaurants, are struggling to stay afloat because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Yet while ordinary citizens are required to quarantine while traveling to the city, celebrities who will perform at the MTV Video Music Awards (MTV VMAs) on Sunday, August 30, are exempted from travel restrictions.

Why give celebrities a free pass?

At the MTV VMAs, performers and dancers from all over the country will gather in New York City. It’s almost certain that some of them will be coming from California, especially Los Angeles, the unofficial capital of the pop music industry.

But California also falls under left-leaning Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mandatory quarantine executive order. Travelers heading to New York from at least 30 states on a travel advisory list are required to self-quarantine for 14 days. (Related: Traveling to New York? Expect to have a “papers, please” encounter with coronavirus contact tracers.)

According to a public safety announcement released last August 11 on Cuomo’s official website, the quarantine applies to anyone “arriving from an area with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day rolling average or an area with a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.”

Additionally, Cuomo confirmed 667 additional cases of coronavirus, which brought the statewide total to 422,003 confirmed cases in New York State.

Cuomo even talked about NY being “one of the worst situations in the country, to an example for the rest of the nation to follow.” He added that New York’s numbers continue to remain low and steady, which suggests that COVID-19 can be kept at bay using a science-based approach instead of politics.

But none of that significant progress seems to matter when it comes to celebrities and a silly awards show.

According to the New York State Department of Health, offenders may face a maximum fine of $10,000 fine or imprisonment of to 15 days.

Celebrities are exempted, but hardworking regular citizens aren’t

Celebrities like Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus are taking part in the MTV VMAs.

A Cuomo spokesperson explained that the health department is granting a partial exemption to singers, musicians and dancers joining the awards show if “they will only interact with other members of the cast and crew and will quarantine when not working.”

The spokesperson added that VMA performers are required to follow “rigorous safety protocols including testing and screening and compliance checks by a special compliance officer.”

The New York City Police Department’s TV and movie unit will also be present to ensure that everyone is wearing masks and complying with COVID-19 prevention measures. On the other hand, regular citizens traveling from restricted states have to face checkpoints and are called or texted by health officials after filling out mandatory forms.

The forms require information such as your home state, destination, the names, ages and genders of your children, along with contact information like phone numbers and email addresses. The form also asks travelers, “Do you consent to receive daily monitoring messages via text from the New York State Contact Tracing Program?” It adds, “If you do not consent to text, you will receive a daily phone call instead.”

Unfortunately, if you’re not a celebrity or someone with close political connections, you can’t go on out-of-state vacation in New York without wasting 14 days in self-quarantine.

But thanks to politicians playing favorites in these trying times, some celebrities are finding even more ways to ignore pandemic rules while possibly threatening public health.

For example, rapper Kanye West flew into Teterboro Airport, N.J., on Thursday, August 20, then headed into Manhattan. The rapper pulled over on the West Side Highway to switch vehicles then spent some time at an art gallery in Chelsea. On the same day, West headed back through the Lincoln Tunnel to catch another flight.

Restaurants left to suffer while celebs travel freely

This is just another day of breaking rules and making up new ones for left-leaning Cuomo and Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, who sleeps soundly at night knowing that restaurants are slowly going bankrupt because indoor dining has indefinitely been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

After canceling a 9/11 remembrance memorial, de Blasio even encouraged people to attend Black Lives Matter “protests.”

Twitter users have spoken up about the special treatment VMA performers are receiving.

Hollywood elites who come to NYC for the @MTV #VMA’s will not be subject to the quarantine mandate. Equal application of the law is a foreign concept to the Left – they make the rules and change them at their whim.

The rules apply to thee, not me…https://t.co/2aTSvUt9hj

— Liberty Alliance (@LibertyAllUSA) August 24, 2020

So NY Governor Cuomo is not mandating celebrities coming from California for the VMAs to quarantine for 14 days, unlike literally every other person who comes to NY from California & other select states.

Different rules for different bank account sizes

ELITE DEMOCRAT PRIVILEGE!

— Ashley StClair 🇺🇸 (@stclairashley) August 24, 2020

While regular citizens are stuck at home and worried business owners and workers are wondering if they can keep their jobs, hypocritical left-leaning politicians in New York give a free pass to entertainers who aren’t really going to do much to stop the coronavirus pandemic at an award show.

Sources include:

WesternJournal.com

Governor.NY.gov

NYPost.com

Twitter.com 1

Twitter.com 2