By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2026-07-24 01:50:56 | Updated at 2026-07-24 04:05:56
2 hours ago
So far five New Yorkers have been killed by the latest Legionella outbreak — and with victims still hospitalized, the death toll may rise.
All of them were preventable tragedies.
The city has a core, lifesaving duty to monitor and inspect the air-conditioning cooling towers that can spread potentially deadly bacteria.
But Mayor Zohran Mamdani is focused on creating a socialist utopia instead of keeping the city running.
He’s got blood on his hands, along with Health Commissioner Alister Martin.
City officials claim the worst of the current outbreak, centered in Manhattan’s Yorkville and Upper East Side neighborhoods, is probably over.
But truth is, all signs point to more Legionella outbreaks this summer — in a city unprepared to stop them.
Short of staying inside or wearing a highly effective N95 mask, there’s little you can do to avoid Legionella, the germ that causes Legionnaires’ disease, a form of bacterial pneumonia.
The flimsy masks sold in the drugstore won’t protect you.
Too bad, because 12% of those who contract a Legionella infection die within 30 days.
This disease is no joke.
The cooling towers atop most buildings with commercial air-conditioning systems are the outbreak’s source.
In hot weather, water is circulated throughout the building and then up to the cooling towers, where fans send water vapor into the air.
If the cooling tower is contaminated with Legionella bacteria, which randomly develops in warm water, the vapor can sicken anyone walking by as it floats downward.
Older people and those with chronic disease are most susceptible — and the Upper East Side is home to multiple nursing homes and care centers.
Legionella is endemic to the East Coast in hot weather, but deaths are preventable if public health departments and elected officials do their jobs.
That means ensuring that buildings test their cooling towers monthly, as the city requires, and that towers undergo mandatory annual city inspections.
But the city was way behind on its inspections as of late June, before the summer heat took hold.
And buildings that failed to do their monthly testing got away with it, recent data show.
Nearly a quarter of buildings in the affected neighborhoods, including tony private schools, museums and Fifth Avenue residences, had no required test results on record in 2026 — in total disregard of their neighbors’ health.
To be fair, the city’s enforcement plunged to its lowest in 2021, under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who spent most of his two terms at the gym.
They hit a second near-low in the final, chaotic months of Eric Adams’ beleaguered mayoralty.
New Yorkers paid with their lives then, too.
A killer outbreak in Harlem last summer killed seven residents and seriously harmed scores more, including 24 who landed in intensive care.
A New England Journal of Medicine investigation released last month reported that the cooling tower linked to that 2025 outbreak had multiple lapses in its required monitoring and inspection records — and the city had done nothing to force it into compliance.
Watch the theatrics now, as Mamdani’s administration tries to elude blame.
But Mayor Zohran Mamdani is focused on creating a socialist utopia instead of keeping the city running. Gregory P. Mango for NY Post“We are heartbroken” about the latest three deaths, Martin told the public.
“Our aggressive strategy of testing, enforcement and remediation appears to have stopped the source of exposure.”
Too late, Doc: that’s all after the fact.
You’ve been in charge since January. These deaths didn’t have to happen.
But more likely will.
Mamdani’s new rent freeze means landlords — facing rising maintenance costs and no revenue increases — will scrimp wherever they can, including water testing and cooling-tower maintenance.
The city must also be on the alert for the safety of nursing homes as this summer wears on.
On Monday, dangerous levels of Legionella were found in the water system at a long-term care facility in Rochester, forcing it to stop all bathing and shift to bottled water.
Let the deaths in New York this week be a red flag for voters, here and nationwide: Being a mayor is a serious management job.
It’s not about wildly speculating on arresting foreign leaders, or about cycling around the city grinning for the cameras.
The investor class is seeing the warning signs of Mamdani’s inexperience, and it is responding.
Yields on municipal bonds are suddenly jumping upward, a sign that debt holders are jittery as they watch the boy mayor demand ever higher taxes to fund his socialist ideas while allowing record dependence on cash welfare.
This election season, Americans from coast to coast are being wooed by candidates who offer Mamdani-like theatrics and utopian visions, but have zero experience governing.
Voters need to know their very lives could depend on wisely choosing a leader with a track record.
Betsy McCaughey chairs Reduce Infection Deaths, a national nonprofit.
