{"id":334929,"date":"2026-09-01T15:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T15:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/334929\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T15:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T15:20:09","slug":"city-unveils-new-legionnaires-response-measures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/334929\/","title":{"rendered":"City unveils new Legionnaires\u2019 response measures"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City is rolling out new measures to bolster its response to Legionnaires\u2019 disease following a deadly outbreak on the Upper East Side, officials said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

As part of its efforts, the city\u2019s Health Department and Department of Buildings will work more closely together to identify unregistered cooling towers, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a release.<\/p>\n

Legionella bacteria can grow and spread in cooling towers if they aren\u2019t properly maintained, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n

To increase transparency, the Health Department will add a mapping feature to its existing database of registered tooling towers<\/a>, according to the release.<\/p>\n

The city will also look into faster testing methods, work to speed up cooling tower violation enforcement and form a scientific advisory panel that will evaluate new cooling tower technology and cooling systems, the release said.<\/p>\n

Eleven people died<\/a> in connection with a Legionnaires\u2019 outbreak on the Upper East Side this summer, and dozens more were sickened, health officials said.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

On Friday, the city\u2019s health commissioner, Dr. Alister Martin, said there was \u201cno evidence of ongoing transmission\u201d in connection with the outbreak, but added that the Health Department\u2019s efforts were ongoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the cluster has been closed for 4 weeks, our scientists continue working to match samples from cooling towers with samples from patients,\u201d Martin wrote on social media. \u201cWe expect those findings in September, and we will share them publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s handling of the outbreak faced criticism from officials including City Council Speaker Julie Menin<\/a>, who called the response \u201cinsufficient\u201d and said communication with residents was lacking.<\/p>\n

The council is holding an oversight hearing Wednesday to examine the city\u2019s response, with several councilmembers expected to introduce legislation meant to prevent another outbreak.<\/p>\n

In a statement Tuesday, Mamdani defended his administration, saying it responded to the Upper East Side cluster \u201cwith urgency and an unprecedented level of action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen New Yorkers\u2019 health is at stake, government cannot wait for the crisis to pass before asking how it\u00a0can\u00a0do better,\u201d he said. \u201cOur response to\u00a0the Upper East Side\u00a0cluster\u00a0was fast and aggressive, and we are building on what we learned to make our systems stronger, enforcement faster and public health response more transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Hall said as of late August, 81% of the five boroughs\u2019 cooling towers were in compliance with monthly sampling and testing requirements.<\/p>\n

More than 460 of 800 field inspections conducted by the Health Department since May 8 resulted in at least one violation, it added, with $80,500 in fines collected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City is rolling out new measures to bolster its response to Legionnaires\u2019 disease following a deadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[2952,109,25,128,576,2953,4275,9,24,12,63,87,129,131,130,27],"class_list":["post-334929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-app-health","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bronx","tag-erica-brosnan","tag-health","tag-local-politics","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334929","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=334929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}