A celebratory book Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote about his own coronavirus response has had its promotion paused by the publisher due to the federal probe into the state’s handling of the coronavirus in nursing homes, a report said.
Crown Publishing Group additionally has no intention of reprinting or reissuing Cuomo’s tome “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic,” which was released last October, the company’s publisher Gillian Blake told The New York Times in a statement.
The moves by the publisher resulted from “the ongoing investigation into N.Y.S. reporting of Covid-related fatalities in nursing homes,” Blake told the newspaper.
Cuomo and his administration have faced allegations of purposefully withholding the number of nursing home residents who died from COVID-19.
Top aides to the governor last summer successfully pushed health officials to leave out in a July report the number of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 in hospitals, undercounting the true death toll at the time by roughly 3,500, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The state sat on the more complete data for nearly eight months — only releasing it after a damning state attorney general report — and under court order.
The Post exclusively reported that one of Cuomo’s top aides, Melissa DeRosa, told Democratic leaders in a video conference call that “we froze” out of fear that the true numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors.
Last month, amid the allegations, it was reported the Brooklyn-based US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York opened an investigation into the Cuomo’s administration’s handling of nursing homes amid the pandemic.
Crown Publishing Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Post.