Mayor Zohran Mamdani is unveiling a slate of new initiatives to prevent and manage future Legionnaires’ outbreaks, just ahead of a City Council hearing Wednesday where city officials will face questions about their handling of this summer’s deadly outbreak of the disease on the Upper East Side.
The latest outbreak of the severe form of pneumonia has killed 11 people, exceeding the death toll from last year’s Legionnaires’ outbreak in Harlem, which killed seven.
The measures Mamdani announced Tuesday morning target water-cooling towers, which can foster the disease-causing Legionella bacteria if they’re not properly maintained.
Mamdani said the city health department will coordinate with the Department of Buildings to identify cooling towers that have not been properly registered with the city and fast-track administrative hearings for cooling-tower violations in order to bolster enforcement of the city’s regulations around maintenance and testing.
The mayor also said the city will convene a scientific advisory panel to evaluate emerging cooling tower technology and alternative cooling systems for buildings, and will explore faster methods of testing cooling towers for Legionella — a key part of the city’s efforts to investigate outbreaks.
“Our response to the Upper East Side cluster was fast and aggressive, and we are building on what we learned to make our systems stronger, enforcement faster and public health response more transparent,” Mamdani said in a statement. City Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin has said that the source of the Upper East Side outbreak has been eliminated, meaning there’s no longer an increased risk of contracting the disease for residents or visitors to the area. But the city is still working to identify which cooling tower actually caused the outbreak. Council Speaker Julie Menin and several other councilmembers have criticized the city’s response. They are calling for better communication with New Yorkers and more aggressive enforcement of cooling tower regulations, and are proposing new local laws around Legionnaires’ that will be discussed at Wednesday’s hearing. One bill introduced by Councilmember Lynn Schulman, the health committee chair, would require more frequent cleaning of cooling towers, with at least three required during the summer months when Legionella bacteria tends to thrive.
Other bills that have been introduced aim to improve the city’s response to outbreaks, including setting up dedicated testing sites for those who develop symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease and maintaining a dedicated hotline for New Yorkers to get information about the disease.
Mamdani Unveils New Measures To Halt Legionnaires’ After Outbreak Kills 11
