Gothamist75%
NYC Council to weigh Legionnaires' hotline, other responses to UES outbreak 53%
By Caroline Lewis36%
7/21/2026, 9:58:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Self-Serving Bias, and Availability Heuristic, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 29.6% saturation with 185 hits. Analysis detected 906 faulty-reasoning hits from 625 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 52.2% and a BS Rank of 53% (9,273 of 19,489 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 52.40% of the article peer group.
Members of the New York City Council said Tuesday they plan to introduce new legislation to strengthen public education around Legionnaires’ disease and bolster prevention efforts amid an ongoing outbreak of the severe form of pneumonia on the Upper East Side, which has sickened at least 82 people and killed five.
The City Council is planning to hold a hearing in September on the health department’s response to the outbreak, which Council Speaker Julie Menin called “insufficient” in a press briefing on Tuesday.
Menin said a legislative package responding to the outbreak could include a bill requiring the city health department to create a Legionnaires’ hotline to answer New Yorkers’ questions and concerns during the summer months, when the Legionella bacteria that causes the disease tends to thrive.
“We learned during COVID that clear public health messaging can make or break a crisis,” Menin said at a press conference at Lenox Hill Hospital, which has treated many of the victims of the Legionnaires’ outbreak.
The city health department defended its response in a statement.
“The NYC Health Department has responded rapidly and aggressively to this Legionnaires’ cluster on the Upper East Side,” said Chantal Gomez, a spokesperson for the agency.
Menin and Councilmember Lynn Schulman, who chairs the health committee, also called for greater transparency from the city health department regarding its enforcement of existing regulations around water-cooling towers, where Legionella tends to grow.
City councilmembers are weighing additional legislative action after passing new regulations and approving new health department funding in response to a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak in Harlem last year.
In response to that outbreak, Schulman sponsored legislation that took effect in May that now requires building owners to test their cooling towers for Legionella every 31 days instead of every three months, as was previously required.
The bacteria tends to thrive in the stagnant water inside cooling towers and can then be emitted into the atmosphere via water vapor, which can be inhaled by passersby.
“We have to make sure that the fines are being assessed,” for those who don’t comply with the new testing requirements, Schulman said.
She added that she wants to get to the bottom of why the health department has not hired all 56 water ecologists that have been approved in the budget — city employees who are responsible for inspecting water-cooling towers and responding to outbreaks.
The city currently has 35 on staff, with another 14 in the process of being onboarded and seven vacancies remaining, Gothamist reported this week.
Menin also criticized the health department for not providing more concrete guidance to Upper East Siders on how to avoid getting sick during an outbreak.
Health officials have largely responded to questions about prevention in recent weeks by recommending that people who have spent time in the neighborhood monitor for symptoms of the disease and seek medical attention as soon as possible.
Gomez, the health department spokesperson, noted that the city launched an investigation into the outbreak when only two cases had been confirmed and ordered every building whose cooling towers tested positive for Legionella bacteria to clean and disinfect them immediately.
“These actions have saved lives,” Gomez said.
“We’ve also been holding regular town halls, elected briefings, press briefings, and updating the public daily.
We believe that through our aggressive strategy of testing and remediation we have eliminated the source of exposure.”
The city has identified 76 cooling towers that tested positive for Legionella at sites including the Met and the Guggenheim.
All have completed remediation, according to the health department.
Further testing is required to determine which towers actually caused the outbreak, city health officials said.
This story has been updated with new information.
Analysis
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