The pharmaceutical executive who was once New York City’s Covid czar was fired Monday, days after he admitted participating in “private gatherings” that were prohibited during the height of the pandemic, a federal filing shows.
The board of directors at SIGA Technologies terminated Dr. Jay Varma effective immediately “other than for cause,” according to a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Varma was the company’s executive vice president and chief medical officer, the filing says. He was also on its board of directors.
A company spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. A spokesman for Varma would not comment.
The policies adopted in New York City while Varma was former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s senior public health adviser and an architect of the city’s vaccine strategy attracted national attention after Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving was banned from playing basketball in New York City when he refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
Varma acknowledged the prohibited gatherings after a conservative podcaster posted video last week of what appeared to be hidden camera recordings that showed Varma describing them.
In a previous statement released by his spokesman, Varma did not dispute the authenticity of the videos but said they were secretly recorded, “spliced, diced and taken out of context.” The spokesman would not say how they were taken out of context.
In the recordings, Varma can be heard describing a “sex party” that he attended at a hotel with his wife and eight to 10 other people in August 2020, as well as an indoor dance bash in July 2021 attended by more than 200 people.
Varma can be heard describing the first event in the recordings as “just being naked with friends.”
At the time of the second event, New York state had raised the limit on outdoor gatherings from 200 to 500 people. Varma's spokesman previously said that he was a part-time City Hall consultant at the time and that all participants were vaccinated.
“I served in City Hall between April 2020 — May 2021,” Varma said in the statement. “During that time, I participated in two private gatherings. I take responsibility for not using the best judgment at the time.”
