While New Yorkers were hunkered down at home, masked up, and nervously sanitizing their groceries, it turns out the city’s very own COVID-19 czar, Dr Jay Varma, was apparently enjoying crowded outings contrary to social distancing. Caught on hidden camera boasting about his secret exploits, Varma now says the recordings were “taken out of context.”
In a shocking development, the top health advisor for Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was in charge of handling the city’s response to the pandemic, has been accused of attending secret sex and dance parties, despite being the public face of stringent safety protocols.
NYC Covid Czar attended dance and sex parties during lockdown
The New York Times reported that conservative podcaster Steven Crowder released a video on Thursday, following a sting operation, that features Dr Varma boasting about ‘getting high’ and ‘attending underground parties’ that were not at all ‘Covid-friendly’ at the peak of the pandemic.
The video which appears to be a compilation of multiple footage, spotlights the former NYC Covid-19 czar, in multiple restaurants and cafes. In the footage, Varma is seen chatting with a woman, casually discussing a sex party he hosted with his wife at a hotel and a 200-person dance party he attended under a Wall Street bank.
Dr. Varma bragged about running ‘Covid response’
In the video, the government official brags about being in charge of New York City’s whole COVID plan and how he helped put Mayor de Blasio’s vaccine rule into place. He tells a woman (who was off-camera, identified as a journalist) that he had to be “under the radar” about his part in a sex party. “I got to do all this crazy stuff while I was on TV,” he says, thinking about how the public reacted. “People would ask if I was nervous or self-conscious, and I’d say, ‘Not at all—I’m just being myself.’”
“Like, if New York City found out that you were having sex partings during Covid?” the woman asks. “Yeah, it would have been a real embarrassment. We went to some, like underground, like, dance party, like underneath a bank in Wall Street,” he replies. The video continues with him saying, “And we were all rolling. We’re all taking molly and everybody’s high. And I was so happy because I hadn’t done that in like a year and a half, like a year or whatever. And but I was looking around being like, f*uck, I wonder if anybody sees me they’re going to be pissed because this was not Covid-friendly.”
As the main person behind the city’s vaccine rules, Dr. Varma often went on TV with Mayor de Blasio during COVID updates, pushing people to wear masks and keep their distance.
‘I take responsibility,’ Dr Varma responds to the allegations
“I take full responsibility for my poor judgment during that time,” the NYC Covid Czar stated in response to the accusations. While acknowledging the authenticity of the video, Dr Varma claimed that it had been “spliced, diced, and taken out of context.”
In a statement to the Daily Mail, he criticized the mastermind behind the operation, stating he was “targeted by an operative from an extremist right-wing organisation that has been highly discredited and banned from numerous media outlets.” Dr Varma later admitted to attending two private gatherings between April 2020 and May 2021.
