New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is writing a book about the coronavirus pandemic after he oversaw the response of one of the worst-hit states in the U.S.
Crown, a publisher under Penguin Random House, announced Cuomo’s upcoming book on Tuesday. The book, titled “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From The COVID-19 Pandemic,” is expected to be released on Oct. 13, three weeks before the November election, according to The Associated Press.
“In his own voice, Andrew Cuomo chronicles in ‘American Crisis’ the ingenuity and sacrifice required of so many to fight the pandemic,” Crown said, “sharing his personal reflections and the decision-making that shaped his policy, and offers his frank accounting and assessment of his interactions with the federal government and the White House, as well as other state and local political and health officials.”
In an excerpt published by Crown, Cuomo emphasized the importance of controlling fear in guiding New York’s response.
“The questions are what do you do with the fear and would you succumb to it,” the Democratic governor said. “I would not allow the fear to control me. The fear kept my adrenaline high and that was a positive. But I would not let the fear be a negative, and I would not spread it. Fear is a virus also.”
Since July, the New York governor has made regular pronouncements about New York’s purported victory over the virus, even publishing a “New York Tough” poster depicting his state’s daily case count as a steep mountain that he and New Yorkers worked together to overcome. Cuomo has also derided the pandemic response of President Trump and other governors, such as Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida, for “just playing politics” with the virus.
Despite flattening the state’s curve of coronavirus cases and deaths weeks ago, New York still has the largest total death count in the nation at nearly 33,000. The state has the second-largest death count when controlled for population, following New Jersey.
As much as a third of New York’s total death count may have come from long-term care facilities across the state, according to an investigation by The Associated Press. Cuomo issued a much-criticized order on March 25 mandating that nursing homes must accept hospitalized residents upon their release whether or not those patients have tested positive for the coronavirus. He rescinded the order on May 11, but not before forcing hundreds of infected seniors into dozens of nursing homes that had previously not reported a single case of COVID-19.
New York’s official tally of nursing home deaths sits around 6,600, but the state has admitted that the figure does not include all deaths of nursing home residents. Around April 28, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) changed the way it counted coronavirus deaths connected to nursing homes. Officials stopped attributing the deaths of nursing home residents to nursing homes if they died outside of the facility, such as in a hospital or while being transported to a hospital.
“Deaths of nursing home and adult care facility residents that occurred at hospitals is accounted for in the overall fatality data on our COVID-19 tracker,” an NYSDOH representative told The Daily Caller News Foundation in May.
When questioned about the March 25 order, Cuomo has sidestepped addressing his action and whether it contributed to New York’s death count. An NYSDOH investigation into the policy blamed the significant toll the virus played on New York’s nursing homes on healthcare workers. When asked if he would allow an independent investigation into New York’s response to the coronavirus pandemic instead, Cuomo dismissed the idea.
“Yeah, there is no such thing as a person who is trusted by all Democrats and Republicans. That person doesn’t exist [who could perform the investigation],” Cuomo said after casting criticism of his leadership as “political.”