New York City’s former Covid czar has admitted to participating in what he called “private gatherings” attended by multiple people while the rest of the city was on lockdown and large get-togethers were prohibited during the pandemic.
Dr. Jay Varma made the admission Thursday after he was caught on hidden camera boasting about hosting what he described as a sex party with his wife at a hotel and a dance bash beneath a Wall Street bank attended by 200 people while city officials were telling New Yorkers to stay home and limit contact with others to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
“I served in City Hall between April 2020 — May 2021,” Varma said in a statement issued by his spokesman, Chris Vlasto. “During that time, I participated in two private gatherings. I take responsibility for not using the best judgment at the time.”
Varma, who helped design New York City’s vaccine strategy and publicly urged New Yorkers to mask up and isolate, was the senior public health adviser under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. He became a national figure when Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving was barred from playing basketball in New York City because he refused to get vaccinated.
Varma in the video said the sex party took place in August 2020, involved eight to 10 people, and he described it as “just being naked with friends.” He also described implementing what he called a Covid-19 “testing protocol” for the gathering.
Vlasto, in a text message to NBC News, said the dance party happened in June 2021, when Varma was still a part-time City Hall consultant. Vlasto said the party was held indoors and all the participants were vaccinated. At the time, New York state had increased the limit on outdoor social gatherings from 200 to 500 people.
Varma was prompted to react after conservative Christian podcaster Steven Crowder posted a video Thursday of what appeared to be a compilation of hidden camera recordings made at several New York City cafes and restaurants in which Varma described his admitted exploits to an unidentified woman who remained off camera.
The video opened with Crowder confronting Varma about “having sex parties and having dance parties while businesses are being shut down and New York sees an unemployment that’s twice the national average.”
Varma, in his statement, did not dispute the authenticity of the recordings but said they “were secretly recorded, spliced, diced, and taken out of context.”
“Unfortunately, I was targeted by an operative for an extremist right-wing organization determined to malign public health officials and take down the public health system in America,” Varma said through his spokesman.
NBC News asked Varma to explain how his statements were allegedly taken out of context. Vlasto said they were sticking to their statement for now.
Crowder did not respond to an inquiry from NBC News that was sent to him via his “Louder With Crowder” website.
In the apparently heavily edited video, Varma appeared to recognize the hypocrisy of telling New Yorkers to isolate while he was partying with large groups of people.
“I had to be kind of sneaky about it,” Varma can be heard saying. “I was running the entire Covid response for the city.”
Varma is now the executive vice president and chief medical officer for a pharmaceutical company called SIGA Technologies Inc.
In a company-made video made last year, Varma said the “highlight of my career was leading the New York City Covid response” and playing a “critical role in eventually reopening the city and making sure vaccines were available.”
SIGA did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Crowder is also no stranger to controversy. He found himself on the receiving end of criticism in 2021 when he made racist comments about the looks of an Asian American broadcaster in San Francisco, and he has a history of making offensive remarks about other women, the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups.
In 2023, Crowder was caught on hidden camera cursing at his pregnant wife Hilary, from whom he is now divorced.
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