Handling of Legionnaires' disease outbreak on NYC's Upper East Side draws ire of City Council speaker. Here's why.
As the number of cases of Legionnaires' disease on Manhattan's Upper East Side continues to rise, New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin is blasting Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration over its handling of the outbreak.
There are now 59 confirmed cases. Fortunately, there have been no deaths, but 15 people are still hospitalized while 33 have been discharged.
The city Department of Health has confirmed that all 31 buildings across three zip codes that tested positive for Legionella bacteria -- 10128, 10028 and 10075 -- have undergone remediation, including draining and cleaning their cooling towers.
An Upper West Side building underwent independent testing on its hot water, Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin mentioned in a social media post over the weekend, adding it was unrelated to the Upper East Side outbreak.
On Monday night, the city will host it second virtual town hall on the Upper East Side cluster. It will take place via Zoom at 6 p.m., or you can dial in at 646-828-7666 with webinar ID: 165 922 6004.
"I am very critical of the health department's handling of this"
Back in May, the Mamdani administration announced a new law that requires building owners to test for Legionella every 31 days. As part of it, the city hired 23 new water ecologists and allocated an additional $13 million to the health department for inspections.
However, Menin claims City Hall has not been enforcing the law at all.
"I am very critical of the health department's handling of this," Menin said. "What we have seen is a significant number of buildings were not compliant. It does not appear any fines were ever assessed by the health department against any of those non-compliant buildings. This is a serious, serious issue."
A spokesperson for the health department responded with a statement that said, in part, "The New York City Health Department is taking an aggressive approach to eliminating the Legionella bacteria that is causing this cluster of Legionnaires' disease, having tested over 180 cooling towers in the area and ordered any with an initial positive screening test to fully clean and disinfect."
The health department also told CBS News New York it has completed more cooling tower inspections so far this year compared to last, and as part of its investigation into this cluster, it will be inspecting every tower to check if the building is following the new rules.
Legionnaires' disease symptoms
You don't have to live in a building with an infected cooling tower to become ill, officials say.
The disease is not transmittable person-to-person. So far, there has been no evidence of the outbreak being connected with a building's plumbing, just the cooling towers, meaning it's safe to drink, cook and bathe with the water in the impacted buildings.
Symptoms are similar to the flu. Anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms who was in the area in late June is urged to contact their doctor.