William Fowler, Deputy Press Secretary, Office of the Mayor: Thank you all for joining this morning. My name is William. I'm with the City Hall press team. We're going to do a briefing here from Dr. Morse, who's going to open things up. We also have First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro. And then we have some representatives from Dr. Katz from H+H as well, who will be here to take some questions at the end. But why don't we go ahead and have Dr. Morse give some brief remarks before we get started.
Acting Commissioner Dr. Michelle Morse, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Good morning, everyone. So as New York City's doctor and as a licensed health professional, I'm grateful to announce that our Harlem cluster of Legionnaires' disease has ended. There have been no new cases of Legionnaires' disease among New Yorkers who live or work in Central Harlem since August the 9th, which is more than two weeks ago. While today marks a hopeful step forward for our city, I recognize that we are also grieving. During the last several weeks, our Harlem neighbors have been impacted by Legionnaires' disease, both physically and emotionally.
There were 114 cases associated with this cluster. 90 people were hospitalized. Six people remain hospitalized. Tragically, seven New Yorkers died. Any loss of life is far too much. Behind all of these numbers are family members, colleagues, and friends. I offer my deepest condolences to the families of the deceased, and my thoughts are with those who are still recovering from this illness.
The end of our investigation would not be possible without the incredible work of our expert team. Our epidemiologists, scientists, community health workers, researchers all worked tirelessly to locate and contain the possible sources of Legionella bacteria, and to arm the Harlem community with the facts. I'm very proud of our team for that work.
Also, thank you to our elected officials, health care workers, and community leaders who worked hand-in-hand with the Health Department to inform community members of the risks and to ensure access to treatment if and when it was needed. We're able to announce the end of our investigation because there have been no new associated cases for over two weeks, and our team of scientists completed every possible step of the testing process.
Much of the work to find possible sources of Legionella bacteria happened in our public health lab. To pinpoint the source of the bacteria, our team compared the DNA in cultures from cooling towers with DNA in samples from patients. That molecular analysis revealed two genetic matches.
One of the matches is New York City's Health + Hospitals Harlem Hospital. The second match is the construction site overseen by Skanska USA, contracted by NYC Economic Development Corporation, or EDC. Both buildings have been fully remediated and have sanitized their cooling towers.
We are working with both buildings to require them to develop long-term management programs to protect the health of Harlem residents. At the Health Department, we're doing everything we can to promote compliance by building owners with the requirements to minimize risk and avert future clusters.
New York City has among the most rigorous and protective legislation on cooling towers in the nation, but the reality is that when you try to control nature, it is very difficult work. Even still, moments like this demonstrate that our system can always be improved, and I intend to do just that.
I'm proposing several recommendations to protect the future health of our city, especially marginalized New Yorkers. These protections include, number one, requiring building owners to test for Legionella every 30 days instead of 90 days. Second, increasing fines for buildings that do not comply with regulations. Third, hiring more water ecologists to conduct inspections and community health workers who can ensure that word gets out quickly if residents need to be alerted to public health risks.
I appreciate City Hall's support in making it possible to hire additional Health Department staff. In addition, the Health Department will conduct a full review of our existing rules so we can identify places to strengthen our preventive measures. Our expertise at the New York City Health Department is in leading the city to identify the root causes of health issues, working collaboratively across city, agency, and partners to fix them. That takes a host of different approaches at once.
We use data and science to inform our investigations, community engagement to prioritize and meet the needs of New Yorkers we serve, and policy to push for structural changes that address those root causes. Our team of experts will do what it takes to keep our communities healthy. We are also public servants and New Yorkers ourselves. We care deeply about the people who call our city home. Although our investigation of this cluster is ending, our work to protect and promote the health of our city continues. Thank you very much.
First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro: Okay, it's Randy Mastro. I just wanted to say briefly [with] echoing the sentiments of Dr. Morse, we're able to make this announcement today. What I was saying is that while it's important today to announce the progress that has been made, so that the public knows the current status. It is always our commitment and focus to prevent such disease from occurring in the first place, remediating it as quickly as possible when it occurs, because it is a naturally occurring disease, particularly in the summer months, and from this experience, focus on ways in the future in which we can prevent Legionnaires' disease and do everything we can to avoid anyone contracting it.
And that's why we're able to announce the remediation steps that have already been taken and that have reduced the positive results we're able to announce today, but at the same time, recognize that it is never good enough just to remediate after the fact, that we feel for all of those families, and we feel for this community that has been adversely affected by this disease.
And now we will redouble our efforts to ensure that this doesn't happen again by implementing a series of reforms based on this experience that we believe will help to protect this neighborhood and every other neighborhood in the city that has ever experienced Legionnaires' disease.
That is why we are going to require building owners to test for Legionnaires' at least every 30 days, particularly in the summer months, instead of what has been the requirement of 90 days, because this disease can arise and spread rapidly. So we are going to address that by requiring testing at shorter intervals to try to catch it as quickly as possible in the future.
We are going to increase fines for violations, particularly relating to cooling towers, how they're maintained, how they're tested, to incentivize all parties who have cooling towers in any sector to make sure that they're maintained safely and they meet all of the testing requirements.
We're going to increase DOH's capacity to oversee and inspect cooling towers to respond promptly. That's including more ecologists to conduct inspections and more building systems engineers to assess building mechanical systems. We're going to– in combination with DOH, have a coordinated effort to review, inspect, and tighten regulation of cooling towers, because that's where this disease in this latest period manifests itself.
And we are going to do everything that we can to make sure that DOH, going forward, can be proactive in sampling and can be rapidly responding if such a situation occurs. This is something that we strive to do our best to respond to when it occurs, but we intend to do even more from this experience to regulate, crack down, and do everything we can to detect this disease and prevent it from occurring. And when it does occur, to address it as quickly as possible. So that's why the reforms that we're announcing today are so important. And we will be implementing them by regulation and unilateral action as quickly as possible.
Fowler: Thank you both for your remarks. We're going to open the floor for questions shortly. Just a reminder to use the hand raise function in order to raise your hand, to ask a question. And we'll go down. And just as a reminder, we have a lot of people on. And so if you can keep it to one question each, we're going to try to get to as many as possible. So let's go ahead and start this off. Katie, you can unmute yourself.
Question: So you've previously said that the sexual health clinic had been inspected within 90 days and was clear of Legionella at that test. One, is that true of the Harlem Hospital sites and the Skanska sites? And you're saying that that interval of testing wasn't adequate to catch the infection. And my second question is, is there a budget for the additional ecologists and engineers and other mitigation strategies that you're rolling out?
Acting Commissioner Morse: I can take those questions. And then I can also request, thanks [to] first deputy mayor, that the current shift from our team add a few more details about the inspection questions. I'll take the second question first. There is not yet a budget that we're prepared to announce publicly for this package of proposals. And for the first question about inspections leading up to this cluster, it's detailed in the press release that just went out. But Health + Hospitals was in full compliance leading up to the cluster. And I'll ask Deputy Commissioner Schiff to share a few more details on that. And for the EDC Skanska Tower, we sampled the water there on July the 28th. They registered the tower on July the 30th. And I'll pass it to Deputy Commissioner Schiff to share a few more details.
Deputy Commissioner Corinne Schiff, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Thank you, commissioner. And I think it was, I may have misheard you, but I think the registration was July 31st for the Skanska site. I don't think there was– we don't know whether there was a prior Legionella sample. So some of what we will be doing now is looking at the history to see what happened here.
But as the commissioner said, for the Health + Hospitals, we did, we had conducted an inspection within the year. And we did also conduct an inspection as part of this investigation. After we take– the first thing we do is we take water samples from these cooling towers. As you know from our prior releases, the cluster began on Friday, the 25th of July.
That very day, we were out in the investigation zone collecting samples. We continued to do our sampling on Saturday. And any building that we could not gain access to over the weekend or on that Friday, we finished sampling on Monday, including the Skanska construction site that was sampled that Monday.
And I do want to note that we have also said that we were short-staffed to be able to conduct routine investigations, but that did not impact our immediate full response here to this cluster. And for the Health + Hospital site, we had also done that inspection within the year.
Question: So for the Health + Hospital site, it was within a year, but not necessarily within the 90-day regular testing window.
Deputy Commissioner Schiff: So the year– the year was when we had done our routine inspection. So just to note, because there were some towers in the city that we have not inspected within the year, but for this tower, the Health + Hospitals tower, we had been there within the year. We found no violations at that October 2024 inspection. We also conducted an inspection as part of this investigation on July 30th and also found no violations.
Question: I just don't understand. On July 30th, there were no violations, but the cooling tower was determined to be the source of this cluster. How could there have been no test positive on July 30th?
Deputy Commissioner Schiff: So these are two different things. There were no violations with the regulations. There had been bacteria from our sample that we took on July 25th for the H+H site and the sample that we took on July 28th for the EDC site. Those samples were sent to our public health lab, as the commissioner has explained, and those were analyzed, and the results came back culture positive, and then were ultimately analyzed and matched the samples, the clinical isolates that we had from seven of the patients. So these are different issues, routine inspections, and also samples from the cooling tower, the water in the cooling tower.
Question: I guess more broadly, I wanted to ask, looking at, this is a headline from our colleagues at Gothamist, “Legionnaires' inspection sank to near– record low ahead of NYC outbreak.” And the reason given by the Health Department was staffing.
So I guess I'm curious, within the Health Department, but Mr. Mastro, if you want to answer, will there be any accountability from the Health Department or City Hall about what potentially led to the death of at least, right now, seven New Yorkers, many more in the hospital, over 100 sick?
And due to, I mean, it looks like there were not enough inspectors. So I know there's an effort to add more inspectors now, but why did you let it get to that? Why is it that the death of seven New Yorkers is what allows City Hall to add more inspectors? And will there be any accountability within your administration for these deaths? And do you anticipate any lawsuits, any further lawsuits about what many might see as a wrongful death from failures on the part of the city, considering that these are city-owned buildings?
First Deputy Mayor Mastro: We'll leave it to the lawyers to ask questions–
Question: You're a lawyer, right?
First Deputy Mayor Mastro: Yes, but I'm not functioning in that capacity, Katie, as you know.
Question: Right, if only.
First Deputy Mayor Mastro: We'll leave it to the lawyers to address whatever the legal issues are that are involved. And the fact of the matter is that we are committed to expanding the resources of the department. This is not a cost issue. It's an issue of providing the resources and making the reforms that, from this experience, we deem necessary and appropriate.
We aim to prevent any spread of Legionnaires' from occurring. That has always been our aim. Obviously, there was a spread that occurred here. And we are going to take the steps necessary to make reforms, tighten regulation, and increase the resources devoted to detection, enforcement, and remediation in the future. So that's what we are committed to doing, and that's what we will do.
Question: Well, I guess my larger question is, why did it take the death of seven New Yorkers for you to even consider hiring more people? Gothamist reported that there were further people. The Health Department lost many inspectors.
Fowler: We just answered the question about the inspectors. We got to keep it moving. I have seven people that are waiting. So Maya, why don't you go next? You can unmute yourself.
Question: Hi, thank you for the briefing. Following up on that point, I was curious how many people you plan to hire in these roles, and are you expanding headcount for these positions, or you're just filling pre-existing vacancies?
Acting Commissioner Morse: I can start the response, and then perhaps request that the first deputy mayor add more. First and foremost, I do want to emphasize again that we were able to orient all of our inspectors to immediately inspect every cooling tower in the investigation zone, within about 72 hours of us being alerted through our data systems to the fact that there was a cluster of cases.
And again, as Deputy Commissioner Schiff described, that was on July 25th that we saw the initial signal. And by Monday, we were able to make sure that every tower had been inspected and sampled. So I just want to underline again that we were able to mobilize the resources we had to urgently and immediately respond and inspect and sample all of the cooling towers in the investigation zone.
The second thing that I'll share is that we are requesting and working towards hiring additional water ecologists or inspectors beyond what we currently have that would allow us to expand our team. I'm not yet able to share more specifics, but first deputy mayor, I'm not sure if you'd like to add anything to my response.
First Deputy Mayor Mastro: I appreciate Dr. Morse's response and the department did have a rapid response. And this is a natural disease. From the experience, we've learned that there's a need for private parties, the parties who are construction firms or otherwise owners of properties to inspect and test more regularly than a 90 day cycle.
Even though we had among the tightest standards in the country, particularly in the summer months, we've learned that requiring parties to test on at least a 30 day cycle instead of a 90 day cycle should be a very positive advance in the future. And we are committed to even more resources for inspection and remediation in the future.
Although as Dr. Morris pointed out, her team was able to rapidly respond in this instance. It's a rapidly contagious disease or infectious disease, but they did respond rapidly. And it's tragic when anyone gets Legionnaires' disease, particularly when it results in fatality. And we recognize that. So we intend to do even more to regulate and devote even more resources in the future. And I have even stricter standards than the standards we've had already.
Question: So to clarify, you can't share how many people you're going to hire [and] how many vacancies were there in these roles?
Fowler: I think we're going to– we can follow up on that, but there's going to be, we're definitely looking into the staffing.
First Deputy Mayor Mastro: I will make a recommendation on how much they think– I was saying that Dr. Morse and the Health Department will make a recommendation on how many more positions they want for both testing and inspections and enforcement. And City Hall will be promptly responsive to those requests. I'm sure as part of a package of reforms that we intend to implement, to do everything we can to ensure that this doesn't happen again in the future.
Fowler: We're going to go to Marla next, but first just want to remind folks that there's a press release that went out from the Health Department that should be in your inbox. If you haven't received it yet, please let me know and I can share it with you. Marla, why don't you unmute yourself?
Question: Okay, so just following up on Katie's question, when Benjamin Crump announced the lawsuit on behalf of the seven who died, he said that the city had cut corners, that this tragedy was entirely preventable. I mean, can you discuss why the city did not inspect these towers, especially in a hospital? Was it the city's responsibility? Was it the construction company's responsibility? I mean, who's at fault here and why weren't more regular inspections done?
Acting Commissioner Morse: I can start the response and then we'll also ask Deputy Commissioner Schiff to add. First and foremost, I wanna be very clear that it is possible to be in compliance with our regulations and with the law as a building owner and still have Legionella be found in cooling tower samples.
I wanna emphasize again that Legionella is ubiquitous in the environment. It is a kind of bacteria that grows extensively and easily, particularly in the summertime. And I wanna emphasize again that our laws and regulations, although they are quite frankly, some of the strongest in the nation and we were the first city in the country to pass laws like it, although that is the case, it is certainly still possible again that Legionella can grow despite those regulations and laws.
I wanna share just a brief kind of analogy to try to make this even clearer. Colonoscopies are the example I like to share. Getting a colonoscopy does not mean that you're not going to get colon cancer. Similarly, our inspections and laws are intended to reduce the risk of Legionella growing and infecting people and are intended to really, again, reduce and prevent, but prevention is almost never 100 percent.
All of that said, we of course are very thankful that we had the laws on the books in 2015 and have been implementing them ever since, but it is about 10 years later and we acknowledge that it's a good time to revisit those laws and that's part of the reason that we have announced our plans to strengthen our regulations because of what we've learned in the past 10 years.
And that includes changing the testing period to 30 days instead of 90 days during the period of time that the cooling towers are being run. So I just, again, want to emphasize that that is a really important piece of this. The inspections reduce the risk, but do not eliminate it. And I'll ask Deputy Commissioner Schiff to add to that.
Deputy Commissioner Schiff: Thank you, commissioner. I will add that the very protective laws and regulations that we have in New York City require owners to take many steps. There are things they need to do multiple times a week, things to do weekly, things to do every quarter, which will now be monthly, things to do twice a year, things to do annually. That is work that they need to do.
And the goal of our inspections, which is to inspect once a year, is to promote compliance with those. As we have said, we have been short-staffed and have not been able to inspect all of the roughly 5,000 cooling towers annually in the city. We did inspect the Harlem Hospital cooling tower within the year, so we met our target for an annual inspection of that cooling tower. But the way that the law works and the way it has to work is that the owners need to do this routine, constant oversight and maintenance of their cooling towers.
Dr. Mitchell Katz, CEO and President, NYC Health and Hospitals: This is Dr. Mitch Katz. I think it's helpful for me to talk about Harlem because it emphasizes the points that Dr. Morse has made, because we all agree that Harlem Hospital was fully compliant with the law and in fact exceeded the requirements of the law.
And I think this goes back to the point that Dr. Morse has made, that this is a ubiquitous organism. And I think it might also help the audience to understand that you can only disinfect the water at a certain level or people will begin to have allergic reactions to the air, right? Someone might say, well, just put more Clorox in the water, right?
Why don't you just do that? And the answer is because the air has to be breathable for all of the people and the patients working in a building. So Harlem Hospital is the perfect example of full compliance with the rules. And yet we did on one of the tests, as has been explained, have a positive result. We had a number of other tests that came back negative, that we all understand that.
And that's why we support the city's decision to require more frequent testing, especially in the warm weather, because this organism is so ubiquitous. Just wanna add, while I know there's tremendous sadness in the Harlem community, and I join in that, I also wanna point out that there has been great gratitude to Harlem Hospital from the community for all the patients they've taken care of.
And while we're very sad about the loss of life, we're also recognizing that the brave nurses and doctors and other staff who cared for the patients at Harlem saved many lives. Harlem was remediated as soon [as possible], even before we had any lab results, just based on knowing that we were in the summer months and the hospital is completely safe having been fully remediated. Thank you.
Fowler: Okay, thank you. Well, just one quick point of clarity on Marla's question regarding the lawsuit. The lawsuit was not filed on behalf of the seven people who unfortunately passed away. I believe it was on behalf of some construction workers, but just wanted to make sure that was clear. But I thought I heard someone was trying to jump in.
First Deputy Mayor Mastro: I just wanted to add, just to be clear, this is a bacteria that forms in stagnant water or cooling towers, typically in the summer months because of those weather conditions. And it is something that will naturally occur and can affect the immediate area or a cluster where the bacteria forms.
So it's something where we hope through increased inspection, increased testing, shorter intervals between testing that we can identify even faster, even though the regulations that we had in place in this regard were among the strictest in the country. And therefore, we're aiming to tighten and strengthen those regulations to require even more testing inspection and at shorter intervals of time.
Fowler: Okay, thank you. We're gonna go to Adam next. You can unmute yourself. And a reminder to please keep your questions tight. We're gonna try to get to everyone.
Question: Yeah, thanks. I had a question for Dr. Morse. I was wondering if you could give us an update on the investigation into the cases that were reported this week in the Bronx residential building. Have there been any additional cases? Have you found any kind of violations there with the business owner?
Acting Commissioner Morse: Thank you for the question. We are doing two separate investigations in the Bronx right now. One is in a group of buildings in Parkchester North. And that was triggered because there were two cases identified within 12 months. That is our trigger for conducting a building investigation. That did happen in Parkchester North.
And we are working closely with the building owners who have fully complied also with our orders for testing and for interventions there. We have a separate building investigation in the Bronx in Parkchester South. Similarly, that was triggered again because we met the threshold of having two cases of Legionella diagnosed within 12 months.
And again, the building owners there are complying with our orders. We do not have any additional updates at this time about those investigations, but I do wanna emphasize that those investigations are completely separate from the Central Harlem Cluster.
Again, it is the summertime. This is a time when Legionella bacteria, which is again, quite common in the environment does tend to thrive. So those investigations are ongoing and the building owners have been in compliance with our plans and orders around those investigations. Thank you.
Question: So I just wanted to confirm it. Is it over the two buildings, is it at least four cases and are they recent? I know that there's the 12 month threshold as you mentioned, but are these recent cases?
Acting Commissioner Morse: These are two, first of all, there are two separate investigations. They are not linked in any way. And the hot water systems are separate for these two different investigations. Again, one is in Parkchester North, which is separate from the investigation in Parkchester South. They do not have a shared hot water system. So those are separate investigations. And the trigger for the second case happened recently in both cases. And that is what led to the investigations in both buildings. Thank you.
Question: So was the Harlem Hospital performing the required weekly testing on top of the 90 day Legionella testing? And to sort of jump on Katie's question from earlier, this is a [inaudible] sort of public health issue. Why hold a virtual briefing on a Friday before a long weekend?
Dr. Katz: On the first, yes, Harlem Hospital was doing the weekly testing.
Fowler: Just briefly, any other question? I mean, we just recently got the results back and we wanted to put this out as quickly as possible. I don't know if anyone else wants to add, but otherwise we can move on to Evan.
Question: Hey, good morning, everybody. So I guess I want to understand a little bit about the turnaround in testing here. First off, recognizing that there's a difference between being in compliance and having a positive culture. Is a culture taken every time that there is a compliance check in a cooling tower? And if I understand the timeline correctly, it seems the culture was taken at the end of last month and the results have only come back now. Is that a typical amount of time for something like this to take?
Acting Commissioner Morse: Deputy Commissioner Schiff, would you be willing to take those two questions?
Deputy Commissioner Schiff: So I think the first question, I think you're asking about our routine inspections and whether we take a water sample. And we typically take a water sample in our routine inspections. I think your second question is asking about sampling during this investigation and the timeline.
We took water samples here as part of the investigation. We took that sample at the H+H cooling tower on the 25th of July. That was the first day when we identified the cluster. And at the Skanska site, we took that sample on July 28th. And as the commissioner outlined in [her] opening remarks, there are many steps to the analysis that happened.
First, there's the samples that my staff take to go to our public health lab. Those are analyzed in a rapid preliminary test. We act on that, even though it may indicate only the presence of Legionella bacteria, not whether those bacteria are alive or dead. So we don't know whether they can cause disease, but nonetheless, we act on them if they are positive.
And then they continue, our lab colleagues continue that analysis. It can take two weeks to get those final culture results. When we have those, we act on those. We direct the cooling tower owners. Those were those 12 buildings that you are all familiar with. And then the lab continues the whole genome sequencing work. And that takes longer.
Fowler: Thank you. Hannah, we're going to try to go back to you. You should be able to unmute yourself.
Question: This might've been just simply– my question might be similar to the one that was just asked. But I'm wondering, could you explain a little bit more the significance between these two towers and the other 10, 12 buildings that you recalled? Because we know they can't jump from tower to tower. So I think just kind of explaining a little bit about what the significance is of these two being like the source in [comparison] to the other 10 buildings that were found to have the bacteria.
Acting Commissioner Morse: So just to summarize, we had 12 cooling towers at 10 buildings that had culture tests, again, which is the gold standard test, the confirmatory test, which takes two weeks, that were positive. Those positive cultures at the 12 cooling towers across 10 buildings, just because those were positive does not mean that that specific cooling tower may have caused people to get sick.
So it is an initial, it's a test that tells us there is Legionella growing that is alive and that can cause people to get sick, but it doesn't tell us which of those 12 towers was the specific one that had the bacteria that was, let's say, robust enough or strong enough to cause people to get sick. That's where the whole genome sequencing comes in. It is cutting edge public health technology.
We're very thankful that our public health lab has the infrastructure and resources to be able to do that advanced cutting edge testing. And that is the testing that we're announcing today. That testing showed that there were two cooling towers out of the twelve that were positive that had bacteria whose sequences matched the sequence of bacteria that led to people being sick in the Central Harlem cluster. So that is what we know. .
Fowler: So just a reminder to everyone, if you have a question, please use the raise hand function. We're gonna circle back and just do these two questions from Ethan and Maya who asked questions earlier, but so we'll just end here, unless anyone else has any further questions. But Ethan, go ahead and unmute yourself.
Question: I just wanna make sure I'm understanding the testing timeline exactly. So Deputy Commissioner Schiff, you said that Harlem Hospital was tested by the Health Department last October, and again in late July after the cluster was identified. And Dr. Katz, you're saying that Health + Hospitals was doing its own weekly testing of the cooling tower at Harlem Hospital.
If those two are correct, Dr. Katz, can you tell me at what point Health + Hospitals became aware that there was Legionella in the cooling tower at Harlem Hospital? And when, if at all, Health + Hospitals informed the Health Department about that positive test?
Dr. Katz: The first, just again, so that everybody understands, and I think Corinne has done a good job of explaining it. There are a variety of tests. There are tests for [whether] there are any bacteria which are done weekly. There are PCR tests, which are preliminary tests. Then there are culture tests, which are the ones that take two weeks to get back. And then there's the fingerprinting of the culture tests.
And then to make matters more complicated, there is the testing that for Harlem Hospital, the DOHMH does for us. And then there's the testing we do with our own contractor to be extra protective because we, you know, this has been an issue that's very important to us. And we did not want there to be, you know, any cluster period and certainly not related to Harlem Hospital.
So as part of, you know, our remediation on July 2nd, three weeks before the first case in the cluster, we disinfected the water tower because, you know, again, we're all aware, summer months, standing water, nature is very powerful. The test that the Health Department did as part of its investigation was done, and Corinne will tell me if I have it wrong, but it looks like it was on July 25th that that test was done.
Our previous tests were negative. And on, even on that July 25th test, the initial PCR was negative. But then as Corinne has explained, the culture is a better test. And so we got the result two weeks after the July 25th sample was taken. That's the time it takes to get it.
And we got this week, the results of the fingerprinting. But during all of this time, we remediated back on July 2nd. And I think, again, this is just to emphasize why I support more frequent testing and also a certain amount of humility about nature and ubiquitous organisms that like standing water in warm weather and the limitations of the cooling towers or cooling the air we breathe. And so you can't, you cannot over-chemicalize that air. So I think those are all of the dates you asked about.
Fowler: Thank you, Dr. Katz. Okay, we're gonna end this on Maya, if you wanna go ahead– now you should be able to unmute yourself.
Question: Yeah, I wanted to ask about the Skanska construction site on West 137th. Correct me if I'm wrong, the city owns that site too, right? Since it's the public health lab that's being constructed. My understanding is that it didn't have any prior annual inspections by DOHMH since it's currently under construction. But as the building owner, did the city do any of that weekly testing that you're talking about as well, the PCR tests, the sort of weekly identification of bacteria or any of that?
Acting Commissioner Morse: So EDC hired Skanska to construct the building and is under contract with Skanska. So EDC contracted Skanska to construct the site of the new public health lab. That construction is ongoing. The cooling tower at that site had not been registered with the Health Department.
Despite that, the Health Department was able to visit the site on July the 28th, take water samples from the cooling tower, culture those samples and do the PCR testing. The Skanska and EDC teams were in compliance with our orders to remediate the tower after it tested both PCR positive initially and then a culture positive as well.
So we do not have records prior to the point when we both tested the site on July the 28th and then the site was registered. As you see in the press release, the site was officially registered with the Health Department by Skanska and EDC on July the 30th.
Fowler: Okay, thank you all. I think we don't have any further hands raised at this time. So I think we can wrap this up. Thank you everyone for being here and for asking your questions and for those [who joined] to Dr. Morse and Dr. Katz, First Deputy Mayor Mastro and Deputy Commissioner Schiff and others for taking questions here.
Just wanna remind folks that the communications teams here at City Hall, at the Department of Health, at H+H and the other city agencies we’re all here and available to receive any follow-up inquiries that you might have. So please reach out to our respective teams. We will get back to you and thank you again. That concludes our briefing and look forward to any follow-up questions. Thank you.
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