One of those purveyors, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has already declared a "disaster emergency" for the state in anticipation of the newly identified omicron variant of COVID-19.

The Democratic governor declared a state of emergency for the entire state of New York through Jan. 15, 2022, when it will be evaluated if the order needs to be extended. The previous coronavirus-related state of emergency was enacted by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo from March 7, 2020, until June 24, 2021, I guess she had felt enough time had lapsed between emergencies and she needed to show the electorate that she was on the job.

So, you may be wondering obviously there must be some early cases of Omnicron in New York, well according to Hochul’s own admission, not one.

She stated, "we continue to see warning signs of spikes in COVID this winter, and while the new Omicron variant has yet to be detected in New York State, it's coming," Hochul tweeted on Friday. "Today I signed an Executive Order to help @HealthNYGov boost hospital capacity ahead of potential spikes. Through this action, we will also be able to acquire critical supplies more quickly to combat the pandemic. I urge New Yorkers to take advantage of our greatest weapon in this pandemic: the vaccine. Get vaccinated and get the booster as soon as you are able." Seasonal flu and virus spikes due to winter, something completely unheard of till now, thank goodness the governor is working hard.

The official New York state government website stated, "For samples of SARS-CoV-2 collected between November 7 and November 20, 2021 from New York State that are sequenced and entered into Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID), 100% were the Delta variant."

Just a reminder, the state of emergency order does give the governor some extraordinary powers she can "temporarily suspend or modify any statute, local law, ordinance, order, rule, or regulation, or parts thereof, of any agency during a State disaster emergency, if compliance with such statute, local law, ordinance, order, rule, or regulation would prevent, hinder, or delay action necessary to cope with the disaster emergency or if necessary to assist or aid in coping with such disaster." In addition under the executive order, non-essential procedures and elective surgeries can be postponed to increase hospital capacity.

Hochul is concerned about hospital capacity because medical care employees were forced out of the healthcare industry because of New York's vaccine mandate. On Long Island, Mount Sinai South Nassau medical center temporarily closed earlier this week due to nursing staff shortages, according to WABC-TV. Earlier this month, Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse announced it was temporarily closing 20% of patient beds due to an ongoing shortage of nurses, WSTM-TV reported. Catholic Health's Mercy Hospital of Buffalo announced on Nov. 18, that it was expected to close until Jan. 3, 2022, because of "continued healthcare staffing shortages across the region and a sharp rise in COVID-19 patients at area hospitals."

Numbers wise, for those New Yorkers over the age of 18, there are 90% who have had one COVID-19 vaccine dose, and 80% who are fully vaccinated, given the numbers are this high shouldn’t the state have things well in hand, just saying.

Could the staffing shortages have anything to do with the mandates and given replacing health care workers isn’t like replacing cashiers at Walmart, if the governor really wanted to make a difference and improve health care for all her constituents, wouldn’t she look at repealing these mandates. Perhaps take a page out of Governor DeSantis’s book? Nah, that would make too much sense and you couldn’t lord over your citizens.