NYC COVID czar caught on cam bragging about attending drug-fueled sex parties during pandemic
NEW YORK - New York City's former COVID czar Dr. Jay Varma was caught on hidden camera bragging about attending drug-fueled sex parties with his wife during the pandemic.
Varma — who served as senior health advisor to then-Mayor Bill de Blasio during the height of the pandemic, talked about hosting orgies with his wife and attending underground dance parties with more than 200 people.
The videos that were released Thursday, reportedly came from secretly-recorded conversations with an undercover operative from conservative podcaster Steven Crowder’s "Mug Club."
Varma doesn't deny that he partied during the pandemic, but says that his shocking comments were taken out of context.
"I had to be kind of sneaky about it… because I was running the entire COVID response in the city," Varma says in one clip.
Varma, who no longer works for City Hall, admitted to The Post that he "participated in two private gatherings" between April 2020 and May 2021 — but insisted the secretly recorded conversations had been "taken out of context."
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FOX 5 NY speaks with Dr. Jay Varma, a former advisor to Mayor Bill de Blasio during the COVID pandemic about a new next-generation of COVID boosters being greenlit in the UK, the discovery of polio in New York and concerns over the potential spread of monkeypox in classrooms and dorms as a new academic year begins.
In one scathing clip, a woman asks Varma: "Do you think you would have been given a hard time if "New York City found out [he] was having sex parties during COVID?"
"It would have been a big deal, yeah it would have been real embarrassing," Varma responds.
The identity of the woman Varma was speaking to, where he met up with her, and the nature of their relationship were all unclear.
Varma admits on camera that he had to "be kind of sneaky about it," because he was running the city's COVID response.
In a statement released to the New York Times, Varma says he "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," adding "I stand by my efforts to get New Yorkers vaccinated against COVID-19."
During that same exact time period, Pharma regularly appeared on FOX 5 NY, encouraging New Yorkers to mask up, stay home and practice social distancing as public health officials sought to contain the deadly virus.