Council Speaker Julie Menin bashed the Mamdani administration’s handling of the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on Tuesday, as a fifth New Yorker died from the disease.
Menin argued the city moved too slowly in response to the outbreak and said more should have been done to proactively clean building cooling towers in case they had the potentially deadly bacteria.
“With every hour that towers were not disinfected, with every day that they were not prophylactically disinfected, more New Yorkers became sick, and four tragically died. That is simply unacceptable,” Menin, who has frequently positioned herself as a foil to Mayor Mamdani, said at a press conference before the announcement of the fifth death.
It’s unclear whether any delay in cleaning the towers led to the deaths of the five New Yorkers who have perished from the disease.
Around 76 people have been infected in the outbreak, which is concentrated on the Upper East Side, which includes Menin’s Council district. City health officials have said they believe the risk has wound down, with no new cases diagnosed in six days, and no one reporting new symptoms in more than 10 days. Seven people remain hospitalized.
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin announced late Tuesday that a fifth death has been linked to the outbreak.
The disease is a severe form of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria. The cluster was first identified on the Upper East Side in early July, per city data. The bacteria can grow in cooling towers.
Most people exposed to the bacteria do not become sick, but the disease is fatal in about 10% of cases and is most dangerous for those above age 50 or with underlying health conditions.
Last year, the City Council passed a law mandating cooling towers to be tested for the bacteria every 30 days, instead of every 90 days as previously required.
Menin said that about 25% of the city’s cooling towers were not compliant with that rule and should have also been proactively cleaned — though she also said, when pressed, that she didn’t know whether any of those noncompliant towers had tested positive for the Legionnaires’ bacteria.
“We don’t have that information, but…it’s common sense that if they had proactively disinfected, less people would have become sick,” the speaker said on whether any cleaning delay led to the deaths.
William Fowler, a Health Department spokesperson, countered by saying the city has responded quickly to the outbreak and that the source of exposure has most likely been eliminated.
“The NYC Health Department has responded rapidly and aggressively to this Legionnaires’ cluster on the Upper East Side,” Fowler said in a statement. “In the past, city protocol has been to begin an investigation after three cases have been confirmed in a tight area and time frame. The NYC Health Department did not wait for that. With only two confirmed cases, we launched our investigation and directed every building with an initial positive test result to immediately clean and disinfect its cooling tower. These actions have saved lives.”
Menin said she planned to introduce a bill that would have the Department of Health set up a hotline during the summer — when Legionnaires’ is most likely to develop — and strengthen public education notifications about the disease to keep New Yorkers informed.
The city has focused on tamping down the outbreak by having buildings test for the pathogen and then ordering remediation, if needed. At least 76 buildings were found to have the microbe. The city ordered that the buildings’ cooling systems be cleaned and disinfected.
This year’s outbreak comes a year after a similar Legionnaires’ outbreak in Harlem killed seven people and sickened more than 100.