By Brooke Mallory, OAN Staff
Wednesday, September 25, 2024 1:41 PM
A former New York City health official was fired from his job in the private sector after recordings were leaked of him talking about attending sex parties and other raunchy, drug-fueled gatherings while the city was advising the public to enforce social distancing and other measures.
advertisement
Health officials played a major role in supporting and coordinating the city's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Dr. Jay K. Varma is a leading epidemiologist and expert in disease prevention and control. He has led epidemic response efforts, shaped global and domestic policy, and led large-scale programs in China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the United States. From 2001 to 2021, he served at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with postings in Atlanta, Thailand, China, Ethiopia, and New York City. He was recruited by the Mayor of New York City at the peak of the COVID epidemic and served as the Chief Scientific Spokesperson and architect of New York City's COVID-19 pandemic response from April 2020 to May 2021,” read Dr. Varma's biography here. Drug Target Review.
New York-based pharmaceutical company SIGA Technologies announced Monday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that Dr. Jay Varma has resigned as executive vice president and chief medical officer.
From April 2020 to May 2021, Varma served as a senior public health advisor to Mayor Bill de Blasio. He helped develop programs and put protocols in place to combat the virus, including wearing masks in public, getting tested frequently, and getting the mRNA vaccine when it becomes available. He frequently appeared with the Democratic mayor at press conferences to discuss the city's COVID-19 response.
“While I was on TV, I did all this freakish sexual stuff, and people were like, 'Aren't you scared? Aren't you ashamed?'” he said during the recording. “And I was like, 'No, I really love being my authentic self.'”
Varma also said that if his actions had been known at the time, it would have had a devastating effect on the city's efforts.
“That would have been a huge problem,” he says at another point in the video. “It would have been really embarrassing.”
In a separate incident in Britain, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned in 2023 after a lengthy government investigation found that he and members of his administration attended numerous parties at government buildings in breach of then-current coronavirus lockdown regulations.
Additionally, in November 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom (Democrat) was criticized for violating his own strict pandemic regulations by going to dinner with a group of friends at the upscale Napa Valley restaurant The French Laundry.
In a statement released by a spokesman, Varma acknowledged the authenticity of the video but declined to comment on Tuesday's firing.
“I take responsibility for not using my best judgment at the time,” he said, noting that the recordings were secretly taken during private conversations with others. But he also tried to argue that the recordings had been “spliced together, chopped up and taken out of context.”
Varma later acknowledged attending at least three private parties while employed at City Hall, but did not go into detail about all of the activities he mentioned in the recordings.
In the video, Varma said that at one of his Covid parties in 2020, eight to 10 people, including his wife, had taken ecstasy in a hotel room and all of them were naked and fooling around.
“I had to be a little sneaky about it,” he said. “I was in charge of the city's entire COVID response.”
He also attended a drug-fueled dance party in May or June 2021 in a basement room at a Wall Street bank, where about 200 people had gathered, according to the recordings.
Mr. Varma, who left City Hall around that time but continued to draw a salary as a part-time consultant, according to his LinkedIn profile, acknowledged at the time that he was worried about whether he would be recognized at the party.
“This has not been COVID-19 friendly,” he acknowledges in the recording.
City Councilman Robert Holden, a Democrat from Queens, welcomed Varma's firing.
“The hypocrisy is outrageous… Millions of people are affected by their heavy-handed policies and the public must be held accountable,” Holden said.
Stay up to date! Receive the latest news directly in your email for free. Sign up here: https://www.oann.com/alerts
Advertisement below
Please share this post!
