Four New Yorkers have been killed by Legionella bacteria in the last week, tragedies that were preventable if the city had performed its core, lifesaving duty to monitor and inspect air conditioning cooling towers.

But New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is focused on creating a socialist utopia instead of keeping the city running.

The current outbreak is in the 10128, 10028 and 10075 ZIP codes. City officials claim the worst is probably over. But the truth is, all signs point to more Legionella outbreaks — and a city unprepared to stop them.

Short of staying inside, there's little you can do to avoid Legionella, a form of bacterial pneumonia, unless you wear a highly effective N95 mask. The flimsy masks sold in packets in the drugstore won't protect you.

Too bad, because 12% of people who contact Legionella die within 30 days. This disease is no joke.

The source of the current outbreak is the cooling towers atop most buildings with commercial air conditioning systems. In hot weather, cool water is circulated throughout the building and then up to the cooling towers, where fans send water vapor into the air. Sometimes the water vapor is contaminated with Legionella bacteria, which randomly develops in warm water. As the vapor floats downward, it can sicken anyone walking by, especially older people and those with a chronic disease.

Legionella is endemic to the East Coast in hot weather, but deaths are preventable if public health departments and the elected officials they report to do their jobs.

That means ensuring buildings test their cooling towers monthly, as the city requires, and that towers undergo their mandatory annual city inspection.

As of late June (before the annual heat wave), the city had inspected slightly more than one out of five cooling towers since the start of the year, compared with more than half inspected by June of 2017, when the city first implemented inspections.

Recent data also show that buildings that failed to do the monthly testing got away with it. Nearly a quarter of buildings, including tony private schools, museums and Fifth Avenue residences, had no required tests results on record in 2026 — in total disregard of the health of their neighbors.

To be fair, the city's enforcement plunged to its lowest in 2021 under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who spent most of his terms at the gym, and hit a second near-low in the final, chaotic months of the beleaguered Eric Adams' mayoralty.

And New Yorkers paid with their lives then too.

A killer outbreak in Harlem last summer killed seven, all of whom died within eight days of developing symptoms. Over 80% of the people affected were Black, and most were seriously harmed, including 24 in intensive care. The outbreak was linked to a tower, and as a New England Journal of Medicine investigation reports, the building had lapses in required routine monitoring. The city had done nothing about it.

Watch the theatrics now, as the Mamdani administration tries to elude blame for the current outbreak. NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin tells the public, "We are heartbroken" about the latest three deaths. "Our aggressive strategy of testing, enforcement and remediation appears to have stopped the source of exposure." That's all after the fact. Too late, Doc. You've been in charge since January. These deaths didn't have to happen.

But more likely will. With the new rent freeze, landlords facing rising maintenance costs and no revenue increases will scrimp wherever they can, including on water testing and cooling tower maintenance.

The city also has to be on the alert for Legionella impacting nursing homes this summer. Late Monday, dangerous levels of Legionella were found in the water system at a long-term care facility in Rochester, New York, forcing the facility to shift to bottled water and stop all bathing.

Let the deaths in New York this week be a red flag that being mayor is a serious management job. It's not about wildly speculating on the popularity of arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a preposterous and illegal act. Or cycling around the city, grinning for the cameras.

The investor class is seeing the warning signs of management inexperience. Yields are suddenly jumping upward on municipal bonds, a sign that debt holders are jittery watching the boy mayor demand ever-higher taxes to fund his socialist ideas and allow record dependence on cash welfare to continue.

Voters across the nation should watch this unfold and learn from it as they're wooed by other candidates offering Mamdani-like theatrical appeal and utopian visions but no experience governing. In many of these races, people's lives and money could depend on wisely choosing a leader with a track record.

Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and Chairman & Founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths at www.hospitalinfection.org. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: CDC at Unsplash