Overview
- The city said late Wednesday that the cluster has expanded to roughly 36 confirmed cases with about 22 people hospitalized and no deaths tied to the outbreak.
- Health officials believe the infections are being caused by inhaling mist from one or more contaminated rooftop cooling towers rather than from building plumbing or person-to-person spread.
- Investigators are testing roughly 160 registered cooling towers across ZIP codes 10028, 10128 and 10075 and had collected samples from about 139 towers by July 6.
- Any tower that tests positive on initial PCR screening will be ordered to be drained, cleaned and disinfected immediately, and the city will publish addresses of buildings with positive initial results while culture confirmation proceeds.
- The response builds on recent rules requiring more frequent tower testing, raises fresh questions about enforcement after prior NYC outbreaks, and officials warned that more cases are likely as testing and surveillance continue.