Former COVID czar bragged about sex parties as he ordered New Yorkers to lock down, mask up

The public official in charge of New York City’s COVID-19 response held drug-fueled sex parties and attended a dance party underneath a Wall Street bank with more than 200 people during the height of the pandemic — while during the day, he ordered New Yorkers to social distance and mask up.

Dr. Jay Varma — New York’s senior public health adviser under Mayor Bill de Blasio from April 2020 to May 2021 — was the chief architect of the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates, lockdowns and bans on large gatherings.

Using an undercover camera operative, podcaster Steven Crowder caught Varma bragging about how he broke his own rules:

BREAKING: Former NYC Covid Czar Held Secret Drug-Fueled Sex Parties During Global Pandemic; Says New Yorkers Would Have Been “Pissed” If They Found Out Because He Was Running Entire Covid Response For City

Dr. Jay Varma, Former Senior Advisor for Public Health, NYC Mayor’s… pic.twitter.com/YrgniDUdFc

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) September 19, 2024

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) CEO Mary Holland told The Defender, “It is outrageous to now learn that the doctor who fashioned NYC’s COVID measures completely disregarded them in the most flagrant manner.”

Holland added:

“Dr. Varma follows in the pattern of what we’ve learned about the disregard for these policies by other lockdown architects: Fauci, Pelosi, Newsom, and Johnson and Ferguson in the U.K.

“This shows us that these so-called leaders themselves did not fear COVID while they induced fear in the public and imposed tyrannical and draconian restrictions on others.

“The public needs to question all authority — especially in public health — and take these behaviors into account in future elections.”

‘If anybody sees me here, they’re going to be pissed’

Crowder on Thursday released video footage of Varma on his YouTube channel, garnering the attention of The New York Times.

Varma confirmed to the Times that he attended three gatherings between August 2020 and June 2021. He added that although he didn’t dispute the recordings’ authenticity, they had been “spliced, diced and taken out of context.”

The video footage shows Varma disclosing to an off-camera listener that he attended multiple private sex parties during the pandemic, including one he and his wife held in a hotel room in August 2020 with roughly 10 people who took MDMA, a psychoactive drug sometimes referred to as Molly or Ecstacy.

Varma also discussed enjoying a dance party in June 2021 — “right when we were about to do the vaccine mandate, right before it” — attended by 200 people under a Wall Street bank.

“We were all rolling, we were all taking Molly, and everybody’s high,” Varma is heard saying in the video. “And I was happy because I hadn’t done that in like a year and a half.”

He admitted to being a little nervous that someone might recognize him. “If anybody sees me they’re gonna be pissed.”

Joseph Borelli, the Republican minority leader of the City Council, told the Times that the video revelations undercut the COVID-19 measures Varma had pushed. He said:

“I recall being treated like a pariah for pointing out the obvious at the time — that so many of our so-called leaders were just making up illogical rules as they went along. … Still, even I couldn’t have predicted how full of it they actually were.”

‘I was the one, like, making the decisions about what happened’

Crowder said in his podcast that Varma’s behavior isn’t just about the hypocrisy of leaders not following their own rules. He said:

“This is a story about those in charge not fearing what it is that they demanded you fear in a way that altered your life. You were told to fear going to church. You were told fear meeting family, running your business — or even vote. Remember that?”

Crowder showed a clip of Varma explaining that he largely hadn’t been afraid during the pandemic because he had had “control.”

Varma said, “I was the one, like, making the decisions about what happened, so I didn’t feel like I [had] lost control. … I think that’s what really ends up freaking any of us out.”

After leaving his city work in 2021, Varma became a professor and the director of the Cornell Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Currently, he is the executive vice president and chief medical officer at the pharmaceutical company SIGA Technologies.

Holland said Varma should be “rightly scorned for his policies and his behaviors ignoring them.”

Varma told the Times he had been “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.”

“I stand by my efforts to get New Yorkers vaccinated against COVID-19,” he said, “and I reject dangerous extremist efforts to undermine the public’s confidence in the need for and effectiveness of vaccines.”

Council member calls for investigation of Varma

City Council Member Robert Holden called on Mayor Eric Adams to investigate Varma’s actions.

It’s the height of hypocrisy to tell everyone to put their lives on hold while enjoying his own. #VarmaGate is real, and we cannot let this be swept under the rug.

We need investigations. We need subpoenas. We need hearings. We need accountability.https://t.co/cAINybyZwO

— Robert Holden (@BobHoldenNYC) September 20, 2024

Holland commended the move. “Varma should be investigated for his role in COVID in New York City.”

Holden said in a statement issued by his office, “This was the public health expert for the city while it was shut down — he was busy having sex parties. It’s alarming, especially with so many first responders, city workers and everyday New Yorkers losing their jobs.”

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