Pharma company fires COVID tyrant who had sex parties while ordering mandates

Dr. Jay Varma, widely known as New York City’s “COVID czar” during the pandemic, has been fired from his job at the pharmaceutical company SIGA Technologies after his recent admission that he attended drug-fueled sex parties while ordering mandates for taxpayers.

Varma was the senior advisor for public health under former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. He is credited with designing the city’s draconian COVID response, which included harsh lockdowns, quarantines, and vaccine mandates.

But while New Yorkers were forced to attend family funerals over Zoom, Varma was attending orgies and dance parties with his wife while loaded with drugs. The physician was outed in footage last week taken by an undercover reporter from Steven Crowder’s Mug Club Undercover. The operative filmed Varma on hidden camera during several meetings between July and August this year.

In the footage, Varma repeatedly boasts about how he was the architect of New York City’s COVID-19 response, even convincing de Blasio to decree vaccine mandates.

In one clip, he recounts how he and his wife and around eight others had an orgy in a hotel room.

“My wife and I had one with our friends in August [2020] of like that first summer . . . So we rented a hotel . . . we all took, like, you know, molly [MDMA] and like it was like eight or nine or us, eight to 10 of us were in a room and everybody had a blast because everybody was like so pent up.”

“I had to be kind of sneaky about it . . . because I was running the entire COVID response in the city,” he added.

At that time, New Yorkers were not under lockdown but were forbidden to eat indoors or sit within six feet of each other. Schools had been closed and police checkpoints were enforcing quarantine mandates. 

For Varma, however, it was liberating to have “bodies being close to each other. Like just being naked with friends.”

In another clip, Varma says he went to a dance party that “was not COVID-friendly.”

“We went to some, like, underground dance party . . . underneath a bank on Wall Street . . . We were all rolling, we’re all taking molly [MDMA] and everybody’s high,” he said. “And I was so happy because I hadn’t done that in like a year and a half . . . But I was looking around being like, ‘F–k, I wonder if anybody sees me, they’re gonna be pissed.’ Because this was not COVID-friendly.”

The physician also bragged that he was doing “all this deviant sexual stuff while I was like, you know, on TV.”

Vaccine mandates: ‘You force people by making it really uncomfortable’

Varma also explained to the undercover operative how he forced unvaccinated people — who he referred to as “Right-wing nutcases” — to take the mRNA shots.

“So the way we do it in public health is we make it very uncomforable to be unvaccinated,” he said. “I don’t expect your education to change your behavior. I’m just going to make it really f*cking* hard for you to do your job.”

“You can’t get a job, you can’t go to a restaurant, your kid can’t go to school. It’s like ‘F*ck it, I’m just going to get vaccinated,'” he added.

The operative asked: “So was it technically, like, kind of forcing people?”

“Yeah, that’s what you do,” Varma replied proudly. “You force people by making it really uncomfortable.”

The COVID czar also boasted that he was responsible for unvaccinated basketball star Kyrie Irving being sidelined from games.

“There was this basketball player named Kyrie Irving, he refused to get vaccinated . . . but because he plays for a team in Brooklyn, where I passed the mandates, he couldn't play."

Backlash

An intense backlash followed the release of the video footage. Netizens voiced their anger across social media. Enraged taxpayers, including business owners, parents, and lawmakers, gathered to protest in front of City Hall on Monday. 

“While grandmothers took their last breaths alone on cold hospital beds, Dr. Varma was fulfilling his sick fantasies with hundreds of sweaty strangers,” New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn) fumed at the gathering, according to the New York Post. "We couldn't bury our grandparents. People couldn't attend burials of their own parents. All while one sicko was partying at the same time he was mandating this on all New Yorkers."

City Councilman Bob Holden (D-Queens) also ripped the former COVID tyrant.

“Dr. Jay Varma’s firing is a step in the right direction, but the consequences for his actions are long overdue,” 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 hypocrisy is outrageous.”

De Blasio also made a statement in which he appeared indignant and claimed to be unaware of Varma’s activities.

Varma responds

Varma released his own statement following the public reaction, though he sounded more peeved than contrite.

“In those private conversations that were secretly recorded, spliced, diced, and taken out of context, I referred to events that transpired four years ago,” he said. “Between April 2020 – May 2021, I participated in two private gatherings. I take responsibility for not using the best judgment at the time.”

Terminated

SIGA Technologies, where Varma had been serving as executive vice president and chief medical officer, announced Monday that it terminated Varma.

“On September 23, 2024, the Board of Directors of SIGA Technologies (NASDAQ: SIGA) 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 firm wrote in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Pursuant to the terms of his employment agreement, Dr. Varma’s service on the Company’s Board of Directors also automatically ended effective immediately.”

Dropped by Cornell Medical School

Also on Monday, The Daily Wire reported that Weil Cornell Medicine has distanced itself from Varma. 

“Jay Varma was a full-time employee from September 2021 to August 2023 after which he continued as an unpaid advisor,” a Weill Cornell Medicine spokeswoman said. “We were not aware of the alleged unethical behavior that occurred prior to his employment with us, and he is no longer affiliated with our organization.”

“As an institution that was on the frontlines during the pandemic, we firmly upheld all safety regulations to protect public health,” the spokeswoman added.

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