Legionella bacteria has been found in the cooling tower at Yankee Stadium and nine other South Bronx sites amid an outbreak that has killed one person and sickened eight others — and city officials still can't say where it's coming from.
This is what Democrat governance looks like in America's largest city: basic water infrastructure goes unmonitored, citizens get pneumonia, and the health department scrambles after the body count starts. Meanwhile, New York has poured hundreds of millions into migrant hotel rooms and progressive programming. The South Bronx — already one of the poorest areas in the city — gets Legionnaires' disease.
The New York City Health Department announced Sunday that preliminary PCR testing detected Legionella bacteria DNA in 10 cooling towers across ZIP codes 10451 and 10456, covering the Morrisania and Melrose neighborhoods. Nine people have been diagnosed in this cluster. One is dead. Three remain hospitalized, four have been discharged, and one didn't require hospitalization, according to Gothamist.
The PCR tests detect Legionella DNA but cannot determine whether the bacteria are alive or dead. Only live bacteria cause illness. Culture testing to confirm whether any of the towers contain live Legionella is underway and can take up to two weeks, the New York Times reported.
The Yankees said in a statement that "trace amounts" of Legionella were found through the city's PCR testing on Sept. 11, which differs from the stadium's regular testing protocol. The club said its Aug. 20 monthly test — submitted to the Health Department — came back negative. Weekly tests on Aug. 26, Sept. 2, and Sept. 9 were also conducted. The Yankees completed a full remediation of the tower Sunday morning and said no current cases have been associated with the stadium.
Health Commissioner Alister Martin said being inside a building with a cooling tower that tested positive does not expose people to the tower's water. "In essence, the air inside the building is not different from anywhere else in the neighborhood," Martin told Gothamist.
Two of the 10 towers — at 820 Concourse Village West and 1265 Franklin Ave. — failed to provide required testing information under a 31-day testing mandate that took effect in May, the New York Post reported. Eight were in compliance. The city tested 24 cooling towers total as part of its investigation.
This is the city's second major Legionnaires' outbreak this summer. An Upper East Side cluster in July killed 11 people and sickened 94, making it the deadliest outbreak since a 2015 Bronx outbreak killed 17, according to Gothamist.
Two outbreaks in one summer. Eleven dead on the Upper East Side. One dead in the South Bronx. The same city government that can't enforce its own cooling tower testing rules wants the public to trust it with everything else. The Post noted that the Lincoln Hospital address is among the contaminated sites — a public hospital serving Bronx residents now sits under a tower that tested positive for the bacteria that kills one in ten people who contract the disease.
New York City has a cooling tower problem it apparently cannot solve. It has a migrant spending problem it refuses to solve. The question for ordinary New Yorkers is simple: when does the city start prioritizing the people who already live here over the people it's importing and the causes it's funding?
