A former official in charge of New York City’s COVID response openly admitted in undercover videos that he flouted pandemic rules when he participated in sex parties in hotels and dance parties under a Wall Street Bank between August 2020 and June 2021.
“I had to be kind of sneaky about it...I was running the entire Covid response for the city,” former NYC COVID czar Dr. Jay K. Varma tells an undercover female journalist. “We rented a hotel...we all took like, you know, molly[Ecstasy/MDMA] … 8 to 10 of us were in a room...like just being naked with friends…”
He was clear the activities he engaged in were “not COVID friendly” and acknowledged friends would ask if he was nervous about it given he regularly appeared alongside former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio at COVID briefings.
“The only way I could do this job for the city was if I had some way to blow off steam every now and then,” he said.
At the time, public health officials in New York, like those in cities and countries around the world, were frantically seeking to contain the virus and Covid’s rising death toll by encouraging people to wear masks and avoid large gatherings. New York City schools were abruptly closed beginning in March 2020. Indoor dining in restaurants was forbidden. Masking indoors in public places was mandatory. [...]
Dr. Varma rose to national prominence for helping put in place the mandatory vaccination rules that prevented the Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving from playing basketball in New York for a time after he refused to get the shot.
The revelations about Dr. Varma’s pandemic behavior called to mind similar instances of official hypocrisy, including Boris Johnson’s lockdown soirees when he was prime minister of Britain and the November 2020 dinner at the French Laundry attended by Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. And they stoked anger among some politicians who have criticized what they say was an unnecessarily heavy-handed response to the pandemic that infringed on individual liberties. (NYT)
The undercover video of the former COVID czar admitting his hypocrisy enraged Democrats and Republicans alike.
Joseph Borelli, the Republican minority leader of the City Council, who represents Staten Island, said the revelations undercut the public health measures Dr. Varma had advocated.
“I recall being treated like a pariah for pointing out the obvious at the time — that so many of our so-called leaders were just making up illogical rules as they went along,” Mr. Borelli said. “Still, even I couldn’t have predicted how full of it they actually were.”
On Thursday, City Councilman Robert Holden, a Democrat who represents a district in Queens, called on Mayor Eric Adams to investigate Dr. Varma’s actions and on the city to drop its appeals cases against city workers who sued after being fired for refusing to comply with Covid vaccine mandates.
“This was the public health expert for the city while it was shut down — he was busy having sex parties,” Mr. Holden wrote in a statement issued by his office. “It’s alarming, especially with so many first responders, city workers and everyday New Yorkers losing their jobs.” (NYT)
After the exposé, Varma accepted responsibility "for not using the best judgment at the time," but said the video had been “spliced, diced and taken out of context.”
BREAKING: Former NYC Covid Czar Held Secret Drug-Fueled Sex Parties During Global Pandemic; Says New Yorkers Would Have Been “Pissed” If They Found Out Because He Was Running Entire Covid Response For City
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) September 19, 2024
Dr. Jay Varma, Former Senior Advisor for Public Health, NYC Mayor’s… pic.twitter.com/YrgniDUdFc