A fifth person has died in New York City amid the legionnaires’ disease outbreak concentrated on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, health officials confirmed on Tuesday. The city’s health department said 82 cases have been identified so far, with eight people still hospitalized and 56 discharged. While no new cases have been diagnosed in six days and no one has reported new symptoms in over ten days, officials cautioned that those numbers could shift as additional cases are investigated and confirmed.
The outbreak has been traced to cooling towers across the neighborhood, with confirmatory culture tests returning positive for live legionella bacteria in 34 cooling towers spanning 33 buildings on the Upper East Side. Nine towers tested negative, while results for another 140 systems are expected in the coming week. All 34 towers that tested positive have already undergone remediation and are fully cleaned, along with any buildings that previously showed positive results.
Dr. Alister Martin, New York City’s health commissioner, expressed condolences and defended the city’s response, saying officials moved rapidly after the first two confirmed cases by launching an investigation and directing every building with an initial positive result to immediately disinfect its cooling tower. He said the aggressive strategy of testing and remediation has eliminated the source of exposure, though he acknowledged the investigation continues and pledged to hold accountable anyone found out of compliance with local laws.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin, whose district covers parts of the Upper East Side, called the situation a serious public health emergency and noted that one recent victim was just 32 years old and had worked in the medical profession. She accused the health department of moving too slowly and announced that the council will hold an emergency oversight hearing. Mayor Zohran Mamdani pushed back against criticisms of his administration’s handling of the crisis, saying his team chose to run both culture and PCR tests simultaneously rather than waiting two weeks for culture results alone, allowing for faster identification and disinfection of affected towers. He also warned that blanket-disinfecting every cooling tower could weaken long-term protections against future outbreaks.
Legionnaires’ disease is a serious form of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria, according to the CDC. People contract it by inhaling mist containing the bacteria, though it does not spread from person to person. While it can be treated with antibiotics, roughly one in ten people who become ill die from complications related to the infection.