New York City health officials say it’s a bit like a crime investigation. But instead of persons of interest, they are looking into buildings of interest.
As the investigation into a Manhattan Legionnaires cluster continues, officials have zeroed in on 19 buildings of interest on the Upper East Side. It comes as the number of sick people jumped on Thursday from 28 to at least 46, including 22 current hospitalizations.
While it’s not yet clear what specific buildings the city is looking at, there is increasing pressure to identify the 19 in question, all of which have one thing in common: A roof-top cooling tower that has preliminarily tested positive for the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease.
Even though longer-term testing is required to know if the bacteria detected is dead or alive — meaning harmless or dangerous — health officials said that all 19 buildings have already been ordered to drain and disinfect their towers, out of an abundance of caution.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin wants the city to be proactively disinfecting all cooling towers in the area, unless they have tested negative.
“It is shameful to wait, to continue to wait, while we know more and more people every single day are getting sick and potentially can die of this disease,” said Menin. “We have to prophylactically disinfect and that is what I’m urging the Health Department to do immediately.”
But the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said disinfecting a cooling tower before a sample has been collected makes it impossible to trace whether that tower was the actual source of illness.
In response to criticism from the council speaker, the NYC Health Department said in a statement: “Since July 2, the Health Department has been aggressively identifying cooling towers that test positive for the presence of Legionella bacteria and ordering building owners to clean and disinfect. We identified this cluster early and have acted quickly to get the word out to New Yorkers.”
The area of concern involves ZIP codes 10075, 10028 and 10128, covering the entire east side from about 76th Street to 97th Street — an area where both Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Speaker Menin live.
“We’re going to be taking the step of releasing the addresses of wherever has been impacted because we know that that transparency is also a critical part of how New Yorkers can continue to go about their day,” Mamdani said Wednesday.
At senior centers just a few blocks outside that zone, city health workers were busy distributing information to East Side residents whose age and underlying health concerns put them at additional risk.
In the latest information on case totals from the city, the Health Department said the problem is not a result of any building’s plumbing system, and that anyone who lives in the impacted area can continue to drink tap water, shower, cook and use their air conditioners.
