Andrew Cuomo has gone loco on crime and vaccines

Gov. Cuomo was really losing it last week.

Strike one: His absurd vow that New York will do its own testing on any COVID-19 vaccine the feds approve.

Strike two: His bizarre threat to cut off funding for the city if he doesn’t like its NYPD reform plans — even as he also hits Mayor de Blasio for not doing enough to stop spiking gun violence.

Strike three: His unhinged charge that the homicide of Breonna Taylor was “murder.”

Even sane-seeming moves look weird on closer examination: The gov named a committee of 20 to advise him on distributing any vaccine — but it’s stacked with his donors and labor cronies.

And it’s just nuts to say he’s assembling a panel of experts tasked with “double-checking” any Trump-administration-approved vaccine for efficacy and safety. Sorry: The work on vaccines is all being done by professionals — some of whom would be sure to scream if politicians (insanely) tried to push a bad vaccine.

More, that double-check would cost money the state doesn’t have — and, presumably, delay vaccine distribution, too.

Worst, Cuomo fed anti-vax hysteria just so he could dump on the president and so score a point or two with Trump-haters.

He stooped to giving de Blasio another public wedgie at the same press conference, railing about the city’s worsening crime even as he reprimanded city leaders for failing to submit a police-reform plan.

Hello: “Reforms” at the state and city level are driving the rise in violent crime — does he really demand more, when the NYPD is a national model of restraint?

But the lowest low was Cuomo’s decision to wade into the Breonna Taylor story with a slide saying her death was a “murder and where there’s a murder there are murderers.”

Murder? Heck, NBA analyst Shaquille O’Neal made the key point: “When you talk about murder, you have to show intent.” And no one rational thinks those four Louisville cops intended to kill anyone the night they executed that search warrant.

You can argue they were in the wrong in how they proceeded — and you can certainly say (we do) that this shows reason to ban no-knock drug raids. But Cuomo’s chosen language is inexcusable for the governor of a state where cops are under siege.

The gov needs to take a week off from talking to the press (let his aides release the virus updates), and focus on figuring out how to plug the state’s $14.5 billion budget deficit. It may be boring, but at least then he’ll be putting out fires — not setting them.

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from New York Post can be found here ***