I don't see it as a terminology problem, I see it as an appeal to emotion argument. NY has to have some policy even if it is a refusal to make policy, the details you provided aren't enough for me to distinguish why this is unique from the fact that you can sully any NY policy with inherent familiarity to past NY policy. The choice NY is making that I think you object to is possibly caused by the ability to reference this past with bias; NY needs to be more conservative on deadly outcomes than cities in Massachusetts that have retained political leeway on deadly outcomes and can therefore refuse to impose checks of vaccine status.