Guggenheim among 31 Upper East Side sites that tested positive for Legionella bacteria

Key Points:

• The Guggenheim Museum and 30 other Upper East Side buildings have tested positive for Legionella bacteria amid a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, with 19 properties already cleaned and the rest expected to be remediated by Saturday.
• Since July 2, 46 people have tested positive and 22 hospitalized in the affected ZIP codes, but no deaths have been reported; health officials believe a contaminated cooling tower emitting Legionella mist is the likely source.
• The city has tested 183 cooling towers and plans further culture analyses and whole-genome sequencing to identify live bacteria strains and link them to patient cases, a process that may take weeks.
• City health officials emphasize that residents of buildings with positive cooling towers are not at higher risk, and anyone in the area could have been exposed since late June; symptoms can take up to two weeks to appear.
• Some criticism arose from City Council Speaker Julie Menin regarding the city’s reactive rather than proactive cleaning approach, but health officials maintain they have aggressively targeted positive towers for disinfection.