Now, blame-shifting and statistical sleight-of-hand are a weasel’s way out of a tough spot. And that rarely works anyway, because it undercuts credibility, limits options and generates unnecessary ill-will.

No reasonable person ever expected more from Andrew Cuo­mo than an honest effort. It’s not his fault that he was saddled both with a pandemic and the clownish de Blasio administration. (The age of miracles is long past.)

But now the governor has to explain the appalling disparities in the pandemic’s impact: Why has the virus so far taken six times as many New Yorkers than it has Californians?

Until that question is answered, normal is never going to return; how can it, while people are too frightened to enter a crowded Manhattan elevator?