{"id":818903,"date":"2026-07-22T16:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/818903\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T16:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:08:08","slug":"fifth-person-dies-in-new-york-city-amid-legionnaires-disease-outbreak-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/818903\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifth person dies in New York City amid legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fifth person has died in New York City<\/a> in connection with the legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak<\/a> on Manhattan\u2019s Upper East Side neighborhood, according to the city\u2019s health department.<\/p>\n

In an update<\/a> issued on Tuesday, the department said that 82 cases of legionnaires\u2019 disease have now been identified and five people have died. Eight people remain hospitalized, while 56 have been discharged.<\/p>\n

Officials said that there have been no new cases diagnosed in six days, with no one reporting new symptoms in over 10 days. But they\u2019ve cautioned that \u201cthese figures may change as new cases are investigated and confirmed\u201d.<\/p>\n

The outbreak has been traced to cooling towers in buildings on Manhattan\u2019s Upper East Side, and the health department said on Tuesday that confirmatory culture test results came back positive for live legionella bacteria in 34 cooling towers across 33 <\/a>buildings on the Upper East Side.<\/p>\n

Nine cooling towers have negative culture test results, the statement said, while results for the remaining 140 cooling tower systems are expected over the coming week.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s health department said that while the testing is going on, all 34 cooling towers that tested positive have already undergone remediation and are fully cleaned, as are all buildings that previously tested positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are saddened to share that a fifth individual has passed away due to the legionnaires\u2019 disease cluster on the Upper East Side,\u201d said<\/a> Dr Alister Martin, New York City\u2019s health commissioner, on Tuesday. \u201cOur hearts are with their family, friends, and all those grieving this loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a separate statement<\/a>, Martin said that the city \u201cresponded rapidly and aggressively to this Legionnaires\u2019 cluster\u201d and that after the first two confirmed cases, \u201claunched our investigation and directed every building with an initial positive test result to immediately clean and disinfect its cooling tower\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that through our aggressive strategy of testing and remediation we have eliminated the source of exposure,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will learn more as our investigation unfolds and look forward to updating our existing policies and procedures to preventing future clusters. Right now, we are focused on identifying the source of exposure through laboratory analyses and holding accountable anyone found out of compliance with local laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legionnaires\u2019 disease is a \u201cserious type of pneumonia caused by lLegionella bacteria\u201d, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <\/a>(CDC). People can get legionnaires\u2019 disease \u201cby breathing in mist containing Legionella bacteria\u201d and that in general, \u201cit isn\u2019t spread person to person,\u201d the CDC says.<\/p>\n

While it can be treated with antibiotics, the CDC notes that \u201cabout one out of every 10 people who gets sick with legionnaires\u2019 disease will die due to complications from their illness\u201d.<\/p>\n

Julie Menin, the New York City council speaker whose district includes parts <\/a>of the Upper East Side, said in a post<\/a> on social media on Tuesday that the city is \u201cin the middle of a serious public health emergency\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cA fifth person has just tragically passed away of legionnaires\u2019 disease and the fourth person who just passed away was only 32 years old and had dedicated their life to the medical profession,\u201d she said, adding that \u201cthis moment requires serious action\u201d.<\/p>\n

Menin noted that the New York<\/a> city council \u201cwill be holding an emergency oversight hearing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, New York City\u2019s mayor, was asked about <\/a>the outbreak on Wednesday as well as the criticisms against his administration\u2019s handling of the outbreak. Menin has accused<\/a> the health department of moving too slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m frankly less interested in the politics of it all, more in the public health of it,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cAnd what I will say is that previous administration procedure had been that we would wait for the results of culture, and that would mean in two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cWe made the decision to do both culture tests and PCR tests, so that meant that we could actually test immediately, disinfect any of the cooling towers that came back, and then additionally wait for the cultural results. And the other point here is that we know that Legionnaires is something that has affected our city over many, many years, and we are both trying to stop this cluster in the moment and ensure that we are not weakening our ability to stop it in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani also said that when he \u201csat with public health experts, what I was told time and again is that if we were to do a blanket disinfectant of every single cooling tower across the Upper East Side, that would weaken those cooling towers\u2019 ability to protect against Legionnaires in the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Mamdani said that the city believes that \u201cwe have now eliminated the source of exposure\u201d but said that \u201cwe are continuing to inspect cooling towers and will aggressively enforce our public health laws\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fifth person has died in New York City in connection with the legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak on Manhattan\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,84],"class_list":["post-818903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}