{"id":302235,"date":"2026-07-21T21:53:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T21:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/302235\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T21:53:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T21:53:19","slug":"council-speaker-menin-slams-mamdani-admins-handling-of-legionnaires-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/302235\/","title":{"rendered":"Council Speaker Menin slams Mamdani admin’s handling of Legionnaires’ outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Council Speaker Julie Menin bashed the Mamdani administration\u2019s handling of the Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak<\/a> on Tuesday, after a fourth New Yorker died from the disease.<\/p>\n

Menin argued the city moved too slowly in response to the outbreak and said that more should have been done to proactively clean building cooling towers in case they had the potentially deadly bacteria.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith 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,\u201d Menin, who has frequently positioned herself as a foil to Mayor Mamdani, said at a press conference at Lenox Hill Hospital.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear whether any delay in cleaning the towers led to the deaths of the four New Yorkers who have perished from the disease.<\/p>\n

Around 76 people have been infected in the outbreak, which is concentrated on the Upper East Side, which includes Menin\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York City Council member Lynn Schulman speaks during a press conference related to the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at Lenox Hill Hospital on Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (Barry Williams\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The disease<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Menin said that about 25% of the city\u2019s cooling towers were not compliant with that rule and should have also been proactively cleaned \u2014 though she also said, when pressed, that she didn\u2019t know whether any of those noncompliant towers had tested positive for the Legionnaires\u2019 bacteria.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have that information, but\u2026it\u2019s common sense that if they had proactively disinfected, less people would have become sick,\u201d the speaker said on whether any cleaning delay led to the deaths.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York City Council member Mercedes Narcisse speaks during a press conference related to the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at Lenox Hill Hospital on Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (Barry Williams\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NYC Health Department has responded rapidly and aggressively to this Legionnaires\u2019 cluster on the Upper East Side,\u201d Fowler said in a statement. \u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Menin said she planned to introduce a bill that would have the Department of Health set up a hotline during the summer \u2014 when Legionnaires\u2019 is most likely to develop \u2014 and strengthen public education notifications about the disease to keep New Yorkers informed.<\/p>\n

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 and were ordered by the city to clean and disinfect their cooling systems.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s outbreak comes a year after a similar Legionnaires\u2019 outbreak in Harlem killed seven people and sickened more than 100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council Speaker Julie Menin bashed the Mamdani administration\u2019s handling of the Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak on Tuesday, after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[110049,110047,19077,113148,8467,1445,9,24,55,54,56,51410,17530,466],"class_list":["post-302235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-cooling-towers","tag-disease-outbreak","tag-julie-menin","tag-legionella","tag-legionnaires-disease","tag-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc-council","tag-nyc-health-department","tag-upper-east-side"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}