Transcript: Mayor Adams Makes Public Health-Related Announcement with DOHMH Commissioner Dr. Morse and NYC Health + Hospitals CEO Dr. Katz

August 14, 2025

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you so much, I'm joined here in Harlem– to really give you an update on the Legionnaires' disease outbreak that we experienced in Harlem. And I really want to thank Commissioner Morse over at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Dr. Katz who's joining us, and our partners here in Harlem, Assemblyman Wright and Senator Cleare. Both of them have really been on the ground taking down the tension and answering questions.

Because when you have a Legionnaires'' disease outbreak, there's so many rumors that will fly around. And if you don't have electives on the ground who can assist us in answering the questions, it can just add to the panic and confusion and uncertainty. And when this first came on our radar, the commissioner and team immediately arrived in Harlem and put in place a plan.

Because they're not new to these forms of outbreaks. We know what to do and immediately kick into gear and that's what she did and I want to thank her so much. I know the Central Harlem community and many New Yorkers are anxious. Because you have so many unanswered questions and we wanted to make sure we did just that.

So I want to reassure everyone, the air is safe to breathe and there's no risk to our drinking water or our water supply. As a matter of fact, why don't you guys go get me some water so I can drink it, so people can see it's safe. And so I'm standing here, right in the middle of Harlem, breathing the air, and in a moment I'm going to take a drink of water. And I'm just telling my Harlemites, take a deep breath.

The situation is under control and DOHMH and our entire medical team are responding. And I really want to thank Harlem Hospital. They have been a real partner as we brought the situation under control. 11 of the 12 cooling towers that tested positive for this bacteria have been remediated. And the 12th and final cooling tower will have remediation completed by tomorrow.

When we identified a location, each location, at 24 hours to remediate the situation and the building owners in this area, they were extremely cooperative. The other good news, if we could have good news out of this, is that, so let me say it another way. We have taken the necessary actions to keep people safe, and I'm moving in the right direction towards the end of this outbreak.

On day one of this, the dedicated men and women in New York City Health + Hospitals and our teams are responding and treating the patients in Harlem. 92 New Yorkers have been diagnosed with the disease by health experts, while 15 people are currently hospitalized and are receiving care. We have, however, unfortunately received three loss of lives due to this outbreak. And our hearts goes out to the family and the community and their loved ones.

New York City Health + Hospitals and our Health Department acted quickly to keep New Yorkers safe and save lives during this cluster. I want to thank them for their work in stopping the spread and frontline heroes. We stand here at the podium, but every day they're out there 24/7 providing the necessary information, updates, and care, and they do it in a very dedicated way. And this was all hands on deck moment.

We all kicked in gear, we all made sure that not only on the ground, but our health professionals here in the hospital were also monitoring the information, giving us information so we can maintain updates for New Yorkers. As this time has shown, time and time again in a moment of crisis, we see our professionals step up.

While the cluster has been contained, we're still urging New Yorkers who live or work in the affected areas to seek medical attention. If you have flu-like symptoms, our team has boots on the ground here in Harlem, and we'll continue to monitor the situation. I want to turn it over now to Commissioner Dr. Morse to give you any updates. Commissioner?

Acting Commissioner Dr. Michelle Morse, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Thank you, mayor, and thanks everyone for being here. Thank you to my colleagues at Health + Hospitals for hosting us, to Senator Cleare and Assemblymember Wright for your collaboration. As New York City's doctor and acting health commissioner, I'm here to address the Health Department's response to the cluster of Legionnaires'' cases in Central Harlem, where we stand. This has been our top priority since we detected the cluster on July the 25th.

As promised, we are keeping you updated every step of the way, and I want to give an update on what we know as of today. We have 92 people who have been diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease. There are 15 people who are hospitalized, and tragically, three people have lost their lives. Any loss of life is too much, and I offer my deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the deceased.

At the Health Department, we're doing everything we can to minimize any further spread of the Legionella bacteria. And to clarify, Legionnaires' disease is caused by Legionella bacteria that grows in warm water. It does not spread from person to person. It can only be contracted by inhaling mist or water vapor that contains Legionella bacteria.

In the summer months, Legionella bacteria grows even more easily in cooling towers that are located on the top of buildings. These towers spray mist and droplets that can carry bacteria. On July the 25th, when our team became aware of this cluster of Legionnaires' disease cases, our response was immediate and multi-pronged. We mobilized our expert inspectors to immediately take water samples from all cooling towers in the investigation zone.

And then, they took those cooling tower water samples to the Health Department's public health lab for testing. At the lab, all of the samples were tested with both preliminary rapid PCR tests, as well as culture tests. PCR rapid tests identify traces of Legionella bacteria. PCR testing is the first step so that we can quickly order treatment of towers to be cleaned in an attempt to stop the spread of bacteria. PCR tests, which are rapid, are not as comprehensive as culture tests.

The PCR tests cannot distinguish whether the bacteria are dead or alive. Dead bacteria cannot make people sick, so that distinction is important. Culture testing is the gold standard, which is why it's an integral part of our process. It is more precise in detecting the presence of living Legionella bacteria, which is the kind of bacteria that can cause people to get sick. However, the culture testing takes about two weeks to get the results.

While we waited for the results of the culture tests, our team did take action. 11 cooling towers had positive rapid PCR tests on the preliminary testing round. All of those 11 buildings that had initial positive results were immediately directed to sanitize and remediate their cooling towers with antibacterial treatment within 24 hours, as the mayor described. All 11 buildings complied with that immediate and urgent remediation.

Recently, the Health Department began receiving confirmatory culture test results as anticipated from our public health lab. Those confirmatory results revealed that 12 cooling towers had Legionella bacteria growing. As of today, 11 of those 12 cooling towers have been remediated. The final cooling tower remediation is underway. We, as of right now, are releasing a list of all 12 cooling towers that were positive using the culture test.

Again, that's the gold standard test. We're requiring cleaning and antibacterial treatment of those 12 towers. What this means is that, yes, these buildings were positive for the kind of bacteria that can cause people to get sick, the Legionella that can cause illness. It does not, however, mean that we have identified the specific cooling tower that may have caused illness amongst the 92 people who fell sick with Legionnaires' disease. That is why our investigation is continuing.

And per our protocol, the New York City Health Department's investigation on the source responsible for Legionnaires' disease cases in Central Harlem is underway. Right now, the Health Department's public health lab experts are comparing the DNA in the cultures grown from the 12 cooling towers to the DNA in the samples from patients who fell ill with Legionella.

Molecular analysis of Legionella bacteria from patients and cooling tower specimens will help us to determine a possible match. I want to be very clear also and transparent and share that the New York City Department's Central Harlem Sexual Health Clinic had a cooling tower that tested positive. The tower was offline the weekend of July 26 for planned maintenance, so we proactively cleaned and disinfected the tower at that time.

We are optimistic that the risk of contracting Legionnaires' disease today is dramatically lower than it was a few weeks ago. We are watching the data extremely closely. New cases have begun to decline. That indicates that the source of the bacteria has been contained.

Now while the initial rapid tests did not identify all of the contaminated cooling towers, the data suggests that that immediate action to decontaminate those 11 initial cooling towers was effective in identifying the most impacted buildings. That ultimately lowered the risk of exposure while we waited on the confirmatory culture tests.

We're continuing to urge all New Yorkers who live or work in the identified zip codes in Central Harlem who have flu-like symptoms to contact a healthcare provider immediately. Legionnaires' disease can be effectively treated with antibiotics when it is diagnosed early. Our team is still working to get the word out to the community here in Central Harlem by running ads on LinkNYC boards in Central Harlem and on popular NYC radio stations, handing out flyers in the neighborhood, which we were doing last week, sharing information at our East Harlem Action Center, making press appearances and answering questions on social media.

Our mission at the New York City Health Department continues to protect and promote the health of New Yorkers. If you, your family, friends, or neighbors have questions, please visit us online at nyc.gov/legionnaires for daily updates, including the hospitalization data, or you can call 311. Thank you. I'll pass it back to the mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you so much, doctor. I want to bring on a state senator and be followed by our assemblyman. Senator?

New York State Senator Cordell Cleare: Good afternoon, and I want to start by thanking Mayor Adams and his administration for quickly addressing this crisis in our community. And for their aggressiveness in containing this bacteria. Like the commissioner and the mayor, my condolences to those families and their loved ones and everyone that knew them.

My concern now is great towards what we will do in the future, and I look forward to the results of this investigation. It is, to me, very curious how this bacteria problem seems to always turn up in Black and brown communities. We have to figure out some form of prevention. There are cooling towers all over this city. I don't know what the disparity is that causes this, and that's a great concern to me and my office.

We are looking into ways to even increase monitoring and inspection. And Assemblymember Wright and I have legislation that we have introduced at the state level. And we're looking at more legislation because the fact of the matter is, as much as we have responded to this, three lives is too many. And our communities cannot continue to serve as the canaries in the coal mine.

We have to find a way to prevent this problem, which seems to start as a maintenance issue and should be easy and preventative. So we're going to work with the mayor and his staff to make sure that we get information out to people so that people can take care of their health needs. We're going to work with him to make sure that we get information on how it's spread and make sure that people know that. So I look forward to working with you in the future to make sure that we can prevent this from happening in any more of our communities and no other lives have to be lost. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Assemblyman.

New York State Assemblyman Jordan J.G. Wright: Thank you so much, Mayor Adams, the administration, commissioner, Harlem Hospital, for being great partners. And like [you all] before me, I want to express my condolences to those who have lost their lives. One life is too many, so three is far too many. I want to take a second to remind the Harlem community that information is out there on what to do.

If you have a sore throat, you got the chills, you have a fever, do not hesitate, go see your doctor as soon as you are able. This is a treatable situation, if caught early, so if you catch it, please, please, please go see your doctor. We have a beautiful hospital here, Harlem Hospital. We are all here to service you. Thank you all so much.

Mayor Adams: Faucet water right? I don't want anybody to say that we tried to pull a scam. Straight from the faucet, you personally got it, right? Okay.

Drink up, breathe up. Thank you.

Question: Mayor, is this the failure by the city for not checking the cooling towers in its own locations? I know there's been criticism for the other locations that haven't been keeping up with the maintenance. So what does that say about the city, and what would you say to the people who are treated here for Legionnaires'?

Mayor Adams: They're part of the H + H system, the finest hospital system probably in the country. And so they are in good hands. The expertise of doctors under the stewardship of Dr. Katz and the entire H + H, particularly Harlem Hospital family, are in good care. Do you have the inspection information?

Acting Commissioner Morse: Thank you for the question. So we at the New York City Health Department certainly are responsible for compliance of our buildings in addition to being the regulator and inspectors for the buildings all across the city. So our building, specifically the sexual health clinic, as I mentioned, was offline for the weekend. We did a full remediation of that building.

And in addition to that, we had results from very recently, as you are probably aware, the law in the city and state says that every 90 days Legionella must be tested. So we do have the results confirming that that was negative very recently prior to a later positive test. That is why it's so important to acknowledge that the testing is important and the maintenance is important.

But even [with] that rigorous schedule, there are still possibilities that bacteria can grow because of the conditions in warm weather. And so I think it's really important to acknowledge, just like if you get a colonoscopy, for example, that doesn't mean you're not going to get colon cancer. Prevention efforts are incredibly important, but they don't always prevent 100 percent Legionnaires' like what we've seen in this cluster.

Question: Center of the outbreak?

Acting Commissioner Morse: So our investigation is continuing. And I know that that is not always an easy answer to hear, because it does take time. And the complexity of the testing that we do to confirm the specific source of the outbreak for this particular cluster does take time. So what we're doing currently is our public health lab, which is one of the most specialized public health labs in the whole country, is doing DNA sequencing.

That is both expensive, rigorous, and really important testing to be able to identify if there is a match between the 12 cooling towers that were culture positive and the patients whose samples we've been able to also sequence for DNA. So we don't have the final results of our investigation. It is ongoing.

Mayor Adams: You'd be proud of me, doctor, I got my colonoscopy.

Question: Is there a plan in place right now to stop this mist or these droplets from spreading? Is there any way that you could create some sort of a barrier from it from dripping into places where New Yorkers are coming into contact with this?

Acting Commissioner Morse: Thank you for the question. The most important actions have been taken already, which is to do an initial remediation of any cooling tower that tested positive in the PCR. So the 11 cooling towers that tested positive within 24 hours were required to increase the biocide antibacterial treatment or add a new antibacterial treatment to make sure that any bacteria that were present were eliminated.

So that's the first step that we did quite immediately within a few days of identifying this cluster. The next round of more full remediation is now happening because we have the culture results. So that's the second round of intensive antibacterial treatment of the cooling towers that tested positive in the culture. That is the best way to prevent any bacteria in water droplets from being inhaled by people in Central Harlem. So those steps have been taken.

Question: Given that Legionella tends to affect people with co-morbidities or other health problems, and a hospital is a place where those kinds of people are being treated, is there a possibility that more people were exposed here than might have been in other places?

Acting Commissioner Morse: I appreciate the question, and we are very much concerned, of course, about the people who have risk factors for Legionella. And just to clarify, the risk factors for complications from Legionella or for poorer outcomes are things like being over the age of 50, if you have a chronic disease like lung disease, if you're a smoker, if your immune system is not working well. Those are really important risk factors for a poorer outcome from Legionella.

However, our investigation is not complete, so I would not draw any conclusions yet about any additional or specific exposures. The whole goal of our investigation is to both make sure that New Yorkers that are at risk in the zone of the investigation, the five zip codes in Central Harlem, know that they're at risk and seek care immediately, while at the same time, we urgently do the antibacterial treatment of the cooling towers. So I can't draw any conclusions yet about more risks in certain zip codes than others until the investigation is complete.

Question: Just to clarify, you were saying that the clinic that was recently offline, is that the twelfth and final cooling tower that still needs to be remediated and will be by tomorrow?

Acting Commissioner Morse: Our sexual health clinic has completed its remediation.

Question: Are you releasing the location that hasn't been remediated yet?

Acting Commissioner Morse: We released the twelve locations that had cultures that are positive. Remediation has been completed for eleven and is ongoing for the twelfth.

Question: For anyone who's getting familiar with the story now, looks at this list of locations, maybe lives in Harlem and is trying to figure out if they've visited any of these buildings in particular, do we know for certain that you had to have visited these buildings, worked, lived in any of those buildings in order to be at risk? Or could you have been walking by? In terms of proximity, how at risk are you?

Acting Commissioner Morse: The most important thing that I'll tell you, and I'm glad you asked that clarifying question, is that anyone who lives or works in the five zip codes in the Central Harlem cluster that we're investigating was at risk. And that's what our messaging has been. We've done messaging in multiple languages, in multiple zip codes, and in multiple radio, media, social media, and other outlets to make it clear that anyone who works and lives in those five zip codes was at risk.

And in addition to that, part of the reason we didn't release the initial eleven cooling tower locations that tested positive by the rapid test is for the reason you just described. We did not want people to think, well, I don't live there, I don't have to worry. That is actually the exact opposite response from what we wanted. What we wanted was for people in all five zip codes to be on high alert for developing any flu-like symptoms and to immediately seek care.

The new twelve culture results, again, have been remediated fully or are almost done with remediation. And just to clarify what remediation is, remediation takes two pathways, but it's essentially the action that the building manager and engineer together would take to clean the cooling tower. There's an initial more rapid version, and then there's also a more full version. So remediation is an antibacterial treatment of the cooling tower.

Question: Forgive me if this was addressed earlier, but were any of the buildings where the cooling towers were identified repeat offenders from previous years? And also, are those building owners facing penalties, fines? You know, is there anything to dissuade them from letting it get to the state of disrepair in the future?

Acting Commissioner Morse: Thank you for the question. All of the building owners are following our orders for remediation, and they have all been in compliance with our orders for addressing the positive tests that we found, that we have found in this particular cluster. So we're glad to see the compliance with remediation right now. As for the question about when was the last inspection and what was their prior compliance record, I don't have that information right now, but we can certainly follow up with you.

Question: Are they facing penalties for allowing it to get, allowing Legionella to develop?

Acting Commissioner Morse: The building owners are in compliance right now, so no one has been fined for the current cluster that is happening right now. But we can follow up with you for any further information about historic inspections.

Question: I'm just a little confused. They're in compliance because they took steps after the facts, but does that mean that they were in compliance leading up to this point?

Acting Commissioner Morse: I'm commenting right now on the current efforts because of the urgency of the current cluster. Our most important priority in the immediate time to protect the health of residents and people who work in Central Harlem was to make sure that those building owners immediately did an antibacterial treatment of the cooling towers that tested positive. So I'm commenting on the fact that currently, to address the health concerns of Harlemites, in the five zip codes, the building owners have done what we've asked them to do, and they've done so urgently.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.