Dr. Jay Varma, the city’s embattled former COVID czar, has been fired from his job as executive vice president and chief medical officer at SIGA Technologies, following reports Varma attended a sex party and rave amid COVID lockdowns.
The news of Varma’s termination, disclosed in an SEC filing Monday, comes just days after videos of Varma, City Hall’s senior public health adviser under Mayor Bill de Blasio, were posted on Thursday by the conservative podcaster Steven Crowder.
“On September 23, 2024, the Board of Directors of SIGA Technologies, Inc. (the “Company”) terminated Dr. Jay Varma, effective immediately, other than for cause, from his position as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of the Company,” the SEC filing says.
In the videos, Varma is seen presumably on dates with a woman, describing a sex party he and his wife hosted at a hotel, and a dance party held under a bank that he attended.
The irony of the admissions added fuel to the story.
Varma had played a top role in directing the city’s guidelines for how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic from from April 2020 to May 2021. New York City was hit especially hard, with tens of thousands killed.
As a top official in charge of the city’s efforts to eradicate COVID by pushing vaccination, social distancing and mask wearing, he rose to national prominence when he instituted vaccine mandates that led, among other things,to Kyrie Irving being unable to play home games for the Nets. Around 1,500 NYC employees lost their jobs because they refused to get the vaccine.
“The only way I could do this job for the City is if I could blow off steam every now and then,” he told the off-camera woman at one point in the video.
Chris Vlasto, a representative of Varma’s, clarified that Varma had attended two sex parties in August 2020 and November 2020, and noted that it wasn’t against any official guidance at the time.
In a statement issued shortly after the videos surfaced, Varma said his conversations with the woman were “secretly recorded, spliced, diced, and taken out of context” and admitted that he takes responsibility for “not using the best judgment at the time.”
“Facing the greatest public health crisis in a century, our top priority was to save lives, and every decision made was based on the best available science to keep New Yorkers safe,” Varma said. “I stand by my efforts to get New Yorkers vaccinated against COVID-19, and I reject dangerous extremist efforts to undermine the public’s confidence in the need for and effectiveness of vaccines.”
Varma has been widely slammed as a hypocrite for the difference between his public-facing messages and colorful private life.
“Dr. Jay Varma’s firing is a step in the right direction, but the consequences for his actions are long overdue,”conservative Councilmember Robert Holden said in a statement. “Varma boasted about harassing people into submission over the vaccine mandate and admitted to participating in illegal sex parties, all while he, former Health Commissioner Dr. David Chokshi, and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio imposed draconian measures that shut down the entire city,”
The Council’s conservative Common Sense Caucus, co-chaired by Holden, seized on the controversy to host a press conference at City Hall Monday calling for the reinstatement of city workers who lost their jobs because they refused to get vaccinated.
“We’re been vindicated… We were right and they were wrong,” Councilmember Vickie Paladino said, adding that there was still “a lot more hypocrisy to overturn.”
Varma left city government to become the director of the Cornell Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response at Weill Cornell Medical College, moving on to SIGA, a pharmaceutical company, in fall 2023.
Neither representatives for SIGA nor Varma himself immediately responded to requests for comment.
