111 days of Cuomo coronavirus briefings have come to an end, leading me to wonder: Am I a Cuomosexual?

The governor's briefings became my beat at The Independent, a normalcy and routine that I relished during a time when we never knew what each day would look like

America’s most watched governor has ended his daily coronavirus briefings after 111 days straight of press conferences – an announcement that I confess has left me with mixed emotions.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo first arrived on television screens across America in March amid the pandemic, as the state became the epicenter of the virus.

His charming yet informative PowerPoint slides informed New Yorkers about the facts in easily digestible segments. People I follow on Twitter and Instagram, some of whom are not even based in New York, would tell everyone that they, too, were tuning in by sharing one of his slides.

Humor weaved into the seriousness of the briefings, with Cuomo often opening the weekend conference by saying, “Today is Saturday” as a way to joke about how the pandemic has left people with an inability to track time. That slide, I admit, made its way onto my own Instagram feed.

Cuomo’s press briefings quickly became my beat at The Independent, a routine I relished during a time when we never knew quite what the world would look like each day.

That routine came to an end today, as Cuomo delivered his final briefing in an unconventional way. Instead of the long preamble, he offered a short statement delivered from his seemingly empty office. And there wasn’t a single PowerPoint slide in sight.

“After a 111 days of hell they deserve a break, we all do,” the governor said after stating he gave his team and reporters a break when covering the briefing for final day.

“In the past three months, we have done the impossible,” he continued. “By reducing the infection rate, we saved over 100,000 people from being hospitalized and potentially dying. I am so incredibly proud of what we did together. We reopened the economy and saved lives, because it was never a choice to do one or the other.”

In those last three months I would tune in each morning ready to report on the top breaking lines coming out of New York, and they were abundant. Networks even started to carry these daily briefings in full because of the interest among viewers about what Cuomo had to say. On the day it was announced New York state would completely shut down, for example, I was one of the 511,385 viewers on Twitter’s Periscope. Cuomo also amassed 645,648 views on Facebook and 57,789 through the governor’s website on that day alone.

New York reporters who covered the governor before March described him as a “pure political pragmatist” and “micromanager”, according to one New York Times report. He was also known to be standoffish and often inaccessible to the media.

But he and his office found a way to strike a different tone for the masses when dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

Any other politician would probably have faced a significant drop in their polling numbers if their area quickly became the epicenter for a global virus, but not Cuomo. His popularity instead soared to 81 percent approval among New Yorkers, and his Twitter following more than doubled – he now stands at 2.3 million followers after not breaking one million prior to the pandemic.

Bingo cards, parodies, songs and more were all created by ardent fans in the weeks following, in an unexpected outpouring of love for the New Yorker. It was a special kind of adoration that other prominent governors – such as Washington’s Jay Inslee, California’s Gavin Newsom, or Maryland’s Larry Hogan Ohio’s – couldn’t quite amass.

So what was it about Cuomo that even had me asking myself: “Am I a Cuomosexual?”

His rhetoric starkly contrasted with that of President Donald Trump, who would often hold his daily coronavirus press briefings just a few hours later.

When Cuomo told New Yorkers to “blame me” for all and every legislative decision coming out of the state, Trump hours later would say he would accept no blame for how the virus quickly spread through the United States.

Multiple slides each day would express the governor’s concern and anguish over the thousands of lives lost during the pandemic, a moment of empathy that would humanize the politician. This contrasted with Trump only using a few minutes over his hours-long briefings to mention that people were dying at all.

“Just the facts, ma’am” went on to become a consistent quote Cuomo would emblazon on a slide to let the public know what they would be getting from his team before announcing the daily numbers. Later, Trump would make national headlines for misguided, and sometimes dangerous, suggestions – like injecting oneself with bleach to kill the virus.

In a tale of two politicians, Cuomo undoubtedly came out on top — while the president has seen a significant decline in his own approval numbers.

The governor’s actions were not always approved during the pandemic, though, specifically when it concerned decisions surrounding the movement of patients in nursing homes – a stain on his administration’s response. But he found a way to run the briefing room regardless, admitted mistakes and pulled it back.

Now, after 111 days of consistent briefings, Cuomo has brought these daily moments — one of which even became a family moment, with his news anchor brother Chris tuning in to say, "I love you" — to an end. New York has fewer and fewer confirmed deaths and cases, and his platform has diminished, with cable news no longer able to justify carrying the briefings each day.

Strange as it sounds, these briefings gave me something to look forward to when covering the coronavirus beat: a few brief minutes of consistency in a jam-packed day shot through with uncertainty. But the end of these briefings also brings a renewed hopefulness; it's a sign that in New York, at least, life might be one step closer towards that "new normal" we all desperately want.

“To the 59 million viewers who shared in these briefings, thank you. Thank you for believing in me and giving me support. Don’t worry, I am not going anywhere,” Cuomo said during that final briefing in Albany an hour ago. “It was climbing a mountain. Forty-two days up the mountain and 69 days down the other side. Every step, every day hurt and it was hard ... but I really believe we will be the better for it. I believe we are.”