New York City’s former health adviser has been fired from his job after admitting in an undercover video that he attended parties and did illegal drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
SIGA Technologies—a health care company that describes itself as developing medicines to prevent and treat infectious diseases like mpox—said on Sept. 23 that the company’s board of directors terminated Dr. Jay Varma, effective immediately.
Varma had been executive vice president and chief medical officer for the company.
SIGA Technologies did not return a request for more details. Varma could not be reached.
Varma said the group was “kind of sneaky about it” given his top-level post in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration.
Varma was the mayor’s senior health adviser through 2021 and took credit in the video for the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which made it difficult for the unvaccinated to dine out, work, and visit the city.
“The way we do it in public health is we make it very uncomfortable to be unvaccinated,” he said, adding later that people “didn’t get vaccinated because they heard it’s safe, they gave in because it was really hard.”
Varma also said that after he left his post and was still consulting for the city he attended a dance party of about 200 people underneath a bank on Wall Street.
The party “was not COVID-friendly,” he said.
If New Yorkers learned that he had attended parties during the pandemic, Varma was recorded telling Crowder’s team, “it would have been a big deal” and “a real embarrassment.”
In a statement to news outlets prior to the firing, Varma said he was targeted in private conservations that were secretly recorded and edited before being released.
Varma admitted that he participated in private gatherings while he was working for the government.
“I take responsibility for not using the best judgment at the time,” Varma said.
“Facing the greatest public health crisis in a century, our top priority was to save lives, and every decision made was based on the best available science to keep New Yorkers safe,” he added. “I stand by my efforts to get New Yorkers vaccinated against COVID-19, and I reject dangerous extremist efforts to undermine the public’s confidence in the need for and effectiveness of vaccines.”
Varma also told Crowder when confronted over his remarks to undercover reporters that he stood by the restrictions that were imposed by the city.
“Varma boasted about harassing people into submission over the vaccine mandate and admitted to participating in illegal sex parties, all while he, former Health Commissioner Dr. David Chokshi, and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio imposed draconian measures that shut down the entire city,” Holden wrote.
“The hypocrisy is outrageous. Millions were impacted by their heavy-handed policies, and the public deserves accountability. Varma’s reckless and unethical behavior cannot be overlooked, and this dismissal marks only the beginning of the consequences he should face.”
Holden was among the City Council members who held a press conference at City Hall on Monday calling for a probe into Varma. They also said the city should drop its cases against workers who the city fired for declining to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and to reinstate all the workers who were terminated over noncompliance with the mandate.
