Gov. Cuomo has never been slow to neutralize an impending public-relations disaster. No surprise, then, that the state Health Department was quick to take Whiffleball off its hit list.

But has Albany really curbed its nanny-state enthusiasms?

The Health Department yesterday pulled back a set of proposed regulations that would’ve required summer recreation programs to restrict games like Whiffleball, Red Rover, kickball — and even tag.

Local rec programs offering such diversions would have been required to declare themselves “children’s day camps” — and so become subject to intrusive, to say nothing of expensive, state regulation.

The rationale?

Such games carry with them “a significant risk of injury” — and no doubt somewhere, sometime this summer, some kid is going to end up with a Red Rover-induced boo-boo or two.

But silly diktats carry with them significant risk of embarrassment to rookie governors and their apparatchiks; no surprise, then, that the administration moved quickly to quash the controversy.

A Health Department press aide says the rules have been withdrawn while officials gather additional information during a comment period that ends May 16.

Which is to say, they’ll be back — because rare is the bureaucrat who can rest while some unsuspecting child is in risk of a skinned knee, or a potential source of permit fees remains untapped.

Particularly disquieting are the early indications that Cuomo has hired himself a state health commissioner with the same nanny-state instincts that animate Mayor Bloomberg’s top docs.

Commissioner Nirav Shah is an acknowledged fan of heavy sugar taxes for soda pop — and quickly hopped on the anti-McDonald’s bandwagon earlier this month when supersized New York City Councilman Leroy Comrie proposed a ban on Happy Meals.

Not only did Shah say that he “supports” the ban, he added that the state likes using the city as a “test bed” for future state action.

But as Shah & Co. consider the day-camp rules, they should remember that:

* Kids who don’t exercise are more likely to grow up fat than kids who do.

* Killing summer programs with unnecessary fees and regulations means fewer exercise opportunities for kids.

Sometimes minding one’s own business really is the best policy.