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The Real Lesson From Jay Varma’s COVID Sex Party Scandal

Messages must be transparent.

photo by Jay Varma
Bryan Thomas / Getty

In conversations captured on hidden camera, New York City’s former COVID czar said he hosted a few sex parties in the second half of 2020, as New Yorkers struggled with the pandemic’s peak social isolation. “The only way I could do this work for the city was if I could blow off steam every once in a while,” Jay Varma told an undercover reporter he thought he was dating. In a video pieced together from several recordings taken this summer, the former senior public health adviser at City Hall describes the two events, which took place in August and November 2020. He also spoke about his work to promote vaccination in the city by making it “very uncomfortable” for those who wanted to avoid the shots.

“I stand by my efforts to vaccinate New Yorkers against COVID-19, and I reject dangerous extremist efforts to undermine public confidence in the necessity and effectiveness of vaccines,” Varma said in a statement to The Atlantic OceanHe acknowledged participating in “two private meetings” during his time in government and said he took responsibility “because he did not exercise his best judgment at the time.” The statement also noted that the recorded conversations “were secretly recorded, spliced, chopped up, and taken out of context.”

It’s unclear whether Varma personally violated COVID rules. The sex parties involved were, according to the account he gave to podcaster Steven Crowder in an accompanying video, “like 10 people.” At the time, New York City guidelines — which Varma widely promoted — limited gatherings to 10 people or fewer in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. Separate guidelines from the city on “Safe Sex and COVID-19” discouraged — but did not prohibit — group sex. (“Limit the size of your guest list. Keep it intimate,” the guidelines said.) Varma explained that he had held sex parties responsibly, noting, “Everybody got tests and stuff like that.” He also said he had attended a dance party with hundreds of others in June 2021, after he left government service (but was still an adviser to the city on COVID policy).

Still, you’d think a public health official would be better off skipping all of these events, while other city residents were encouraged to minimize their social interactions. Even if Varma personally didn’t violate official guidelines, others in his family may have overstepped the mark. He says in the videos that his family traveled to Seattle for Christmas in 2020 and he didn’t go because the mayor was concerned about the optics: Public health officials actively encouraged people not to travel during the holidays to avoid a winter surge. The following January, the U.S. reported a then-record number of COVID deaths.

In June 2021, around the time he was attending the dance party with hundreds of others, Varma wrote an article for The Atlantic Ocean about the tricky calculus behind vaccine mandates and related COVID policies. “Many academic public health experts favor stricter restrictions than public-sector professionals, including myself, think realistic,” he wrote. Instead, he advocated for what he called “a more targeted approach — one that neither requires universal sacrifice nor relieves everyone of all inconveniences.”

Perhaps it would have helped if he had shared his own struggles with that tension at the time. Social science research tells us that public health messages are most effective at building trust when they lead with empathy—when leaders show they understand how people feel and what they want, rather than bombarding them with rules and facts. Clearly, Varma struggled like many others as he tried to navigate the crushing isolation of the pandemic. In preparation for the holidays, his family was faced with difficult, familiar choices that resulted in him being separated from loved ones.

The end result may seem hypocritical, but it is also recognizable. (Well, maybe not exactly relatable, but in principle.) “We know that transparency can increase public trust in public health and medical experts,” Matt Motta, who studies vaccine hesitancy at the Boston University School of Public Health, told me. What if Varma had been candid with the public from the beginning, even about his sex parties? Maybe he could have shown that he understood that you should meet up with your friends as safely as possible, in whatever way makes you happy. Even now, his description of that moment strikes a chord. “It wasn’t so much sex,” he told the woman who tried to embarrass him. “It was just like, I need to get this energy out of me.” We did that too.