Faulty reasoning signals

• Confirmation Bias - 8.9% (47 hits)
• Anchoring Bias - 0%
• Availability Heuristic - 4% (21 hits)
• Representativeness Heuristic - 0%
• Hindsight Bias - 0%
• Overconfidence Bias - 8.1% (43 hits)
• Framing Effect - 0%
• Loss Aversion - 0%
• Status Quo Bias - 2.1% (11 hits)
• Sunk Cost Effect - 0%
• Optimism Bias - 11% (58 hits)
• Pessimism Bias - 0%

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UES Legionnaires' disease cluster has hospitalized 17, but no deaths yet, officials say

The Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on Manhattan's Upper East Side has hospitalized 17 people so far — the majority of the 23 who have tested positive for the severe form of pneumonia since the disease cluster was identified late last week, the city health department said.

No deaths have been tied to the outbreak so far, but Legionnaires’ can be deadly.

An outbreak in Central Harlem last year infected more than 100 people over the course of several weeks and killed seven.

City health officials are emphasizing that Legionnaires’ is treatable with antibiotics when it’s caught early.

“ Every case that we are able to get early is another case that we can potentially treat,” Dr.

Alister Martin, the city health commissioner, said at a virtual town hall on the Legionnaires’ cluster Monday evening.

Cases have been identified in the ZIP codes 10028, 10128, and 10075 – a swath of the Upper East Side extending from Central Park to the East River.

City health officials are urging anyone who lives in the area or has visited since late June to keep an eye out for signs of Legionnaires' and to seek medical attention as soon as possible.

Symptoms can include fever, chills, muscle aches, cough, difficulty breathing, fatigue and diarrhea, according to the city health department.

Martin said the case count keeps ticking up, in part, because healthcare providers have been advised to test for the disease and New Yorkers who might have been exposed have been advised to visit the doctor and ask to get tested if they start to get sick.

“That case count is a sign of the system working, right?”

Martin said.

Legionnaires’ disease is not contagious and city health officials say this cluster is likely caused by a cooling tower in the area spewing mist containing Legionella bacteria into the atmosphere.

City health officials said some who are being diagnosed now might have inhaled that bacteria before the outbreak was identified and the city began the work of trying to contain it.

It can take anywhere from two days to two weeks for Legionnaires’ symptoms to show up after exposure, according to the U.S.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health department staffers are in the process of sampling the water from the 160 or so cooling towers in the affected area so they can be tested for Legionella, city health officials said Monday.

All of the towers that test positive will be drained, cleaned and disinfected.

The city has so far conducted initial screenings of about a third of the cooling towers in the area and will finish that work within the next few days, Martin said.

He said cleaning the towers that tests positive for Legionella is the top priority and should prevent more people from getting sick — but he said identifying the “smoking gun” cooling tower that is the true source of the outbreak could take weeks.

City health officials are holding an in-person town hall on the Legionnaires’ outbreak Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Church of St.

Ignatius Loyola — Wallace Hall, at 980 Park Ave.