Menin, in an op-ed for the New York Post, is pointing the finger at the mayor's office, saying New Yorkers deserve "real answers from Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration."
The council speaker cited a failure of leadership, a lack of transparency and a lack of urgency.
"I repeatedly called on the Health Department to proactively disinfect cooling towers throughout the affected area.... Instead, the department chose to wait - and the crisis spread," she wrote.
On Wednesday, Mayor Mamdani defended his administration's response.
"This is the most aggressive remediation and enforcement strategy that our city has ever taken to eliminate the source of Legionella bacteria," he said.
City health inspectors took samples from cooling towers, where Legionnaire's disease was first diagnosed. If a sample tested positive for the bacteria, that building would be under orders to disinfect the tower. But collecting scores of samples-and testing them-took time.
To date, there are 84 cases in the outbreak with five deaths. Seven patients remain in the hospital, 59 have been treated and released and 13 were not hospitalized.
On Wednesday, the Department of Health announced that 183 cooling towers at 160 buildings have tested for Legionellabacteria. Out of that number, 77 cooling towers at 75 buildings tested PCR positive for the presence of Legionellabacteria in initial testing, 51 cooling towers at 50 buildings tested culture positive, confirming the presence of live Legionellabacteria, all of which have been cleaned and disinfected. In total, 19 cooling towers have tested culture negative, and all other results are pending at this time.
Mayor Mamdani said the data indicates that the outbreak is likely over.
"We believe that we have now eliminated the source of the initial cluster, there has been no one with new symptoms reported in more than 10 days and no new diagnoses in a week," Mamdani said.
And New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin told reporters that Menin's approach would have been counterproductive.
"Every time we do this biocide treatment, it actually does degrade the cooling towers," Martin said. "And thus, in the future, allows them to potentially harbor more Legionella bacteria. Had we done blanket disinfectant from the beginning, we wouldn't be able to actually get the samples. And we need the samples to know what caused this."
Data from the city's health department shows 70% of the city's inspections of cooling towers since 2017 have resulted in violations.
Health officials have not yet identified the outbreak's exact source, and the investigation remains ongoing.
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