This timeline entry is based on information presented in a New York Times article published on 31 March 2021. The following excerpt provides a documented status of the book project:
Mr. Cuomo also utilized the resources of his office — from his inner circle to far more junior personnel — to help with the manuscript. In late June and early July, for example, a top aide to the governor, Stephanie Benton, twice asked assistants to print portions of the draft of the book, and deliver them to Mr. Cuomo at the Executive Mansion in Albany, where he lives.
One of Ms. Benton’s directives came on June 27, the same day that Ms. DeRosa convened an impromptu teleconference with several other top advisers to discuss the Health Department draft report.
The timing of this event is significant because several of Governor Cuomo's top advisers were also involved in doctoring a study produced by New York's Department of Health investigating whether the Cuomo administration's deadly deadly 25 March 2020 directive contributed to COVID deaths among New York nursing home residents.
Mr. Cuomo leaned on his top aide, Melissa DeRosa, for assistance. She attended video meetings with publishers, and helped him edit early drafts of the book. But there was also another, more pressing edit underway at the same time.
An impending Health Department report threatened to disclose a far higher number of nursing home deaths related to the coronavirus than the Cuomo administration had previously made public. Ms. DeRosa and other top aides expressed concern about the higher death toll, and, after their intervention, the number — which had appeared in the second sentence of the report — was removed from the final version.
Had the study reported the full extent of the COVID deaths among nursing home residents, Governor Cuomo's coronavirus pandemic performance would have been tarnished, which hurt the sales of the book promoting his leadership during 2020's coronavirus pandemic.
Here is where other items mentioned in these passages appear as key events in the timeline:
- 15 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Starts Writing Book on His Pandemic "Leadership"
- 6 July 2020: The NY DOH Report "Factors Associated with Nursing Home Infections and Fatalities in New York State During the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis"
- 11 August 2020: Cuomo Administration Stonewalling on COVID Deaths of Nursing Home Residents
- 16 October 2020: Opinion - Cuomo's Pandemic Leadership Book Undermined by Critical Omissions
- 11 February 2021: Team Cuomo Claims They Hid Data to Avoid Trump DOJ
- 31 March 2021: How the Timing of Governor Cuomo's Book Deal Fits into NY's COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandal
