Tone-deaf officials in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration declared a Legionnaires’ disease cluster on the Upper East Side had “ended” Friday — as frustrated locals said they felt abandoned during the outbreak that so far killed seven people.
The premature victory lap not only unfolded as five New Yorkers remained hospitalized, but also as records revealed city officials hadn’t inspected a single potentially disease-harboring cooling tower during June. And just half of the roughly 160 buildings in the affected area have been fully inspected so far.
Upper East Side resident Saundrea Coleman said Mamdani and his administration were “absent” as the disease — and fear of exposure — gripped the neighborhood through July’s sweaty weeks.
“We just feel like we’re just left to die,” she said.
Department of Health officials convened a virtual news conference Friday morning — a day after the seventh victim died — to declare the 14-day incubation period for new Legionnaires’ cases had ended. They also blasted out a press release.
No new symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease popped up during that two-week span, suggesting the cooling tower that fostered the deadly bacterium had been eliminated amid a disinfection effort, officials said.
The Upper East Side’s ZIP codes of 10028, 10075 and 10128 no longer posed an elevated risk of exposure, the officials said.
But as health officials patted themselves on the back, five people lingered in critical condition with the disease, local pols said — leaving the grim potential that the final toll could match the 12 deaths from the city’s deadliest past outbreak in 2015.
And Mamdani, rather than huddling with the still-reeling community, spent his morning in the Bronx for a photo op at the stairs popularized in the 2019 film “Joker.”
Valerie Mason, president of the local community board, noted the affected ZIP codes included Mamdani’s new home of Gracie Mansion.
She cast the city’s response as lackadaisical, especially after last year’s Legionnaires’ outbreak in Harlem that killed five people.
“First of all, there are seven people dead,” she said. “There is no victory lap to be taken here or patting on the back.
“I am disgusted by this press release, ‘put a medal on me’ attitude. There is no applause warranted here.”
Mason contended that health officials only ramped up efforts to disinfect cooling under pressure from locals after the disease popped up as July dawned.
City records also indicate that virtually no cooling tower inspections in three affected ZIP codes took place as the weather warmed.
Just one building was inspected during May, with no summonses at all issued, records show.
And records show no sign whatsoever of any inspections or fines being conducted or issued during June.
When pressed by reporters, Corrine Schiff, the deputy commissioner for environmental health, defended the inspection program.
“Our inspection work is citywide,” she said. “I can’t confirm what you have here in terms of the cluster area, but the work that we do in our routine work is citywide.”
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Schiff also confirmed that half of the roughly 160 buildings in the affected area had been fully inspected so far.
Locals such as Coleman also faulted the city for failing to spread information about the outbreak.
They said Mamdani’s $54 million new “Office of Mass Engagement” was nowhere to be found during the outbreak.
“I don’t think they’re engaging en masse, to be honest,” Coleman said.
“This is the summer. You need to have new people out here. They can be in buildings. Just go and build the lobbies and just give out literature. Come out.”
Critics have slammed the office as a “propaganda” organ for Mamdani rather than a source of much-needed outreach.
“It’s becoming clear that the Office of Mass Engagement is more interested in political messaging than public engagement,” said City Councilman Phil Wong (D-Queens).
“Governing and keeping New Yorkers informed during a public health emergency is very different from producing cute campaign-style videos, and this office has been MIA when people actually need it.”
City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who previously demanded answers and action from Mamdani’s administration over the outbreak, said the ordeal isn’t over.
“While I’m pleased by the news that the exposure period has ended, my thoughts remain with the five residents still hospitalized and those for whom it may take weeks or months to recover,” she said in a statement.
