In conversations recorded on hidden camera, New York City’s former COVID commissioner said he organized two sex parties in the second half of 2020, as New Yorkers struggled with social isolation during the pandemic. “The only way I could do this job for the city was to have a way to blow off steam every now and then,” Jay Varma told an undercover reporter he thought he was on a date with. In a video compiled from several recordings from that summer, the former chief health adviser at City Hall describes the two events, which took place in August and November 2020. He also talked about his work to promote vaccinations in the city by making it “very uncomfortable” for those who wanted to avoid the shot.

“I stand by my efforts to get New Yorkers vaccinated against COVID-19 and oppose dangerous extremist efforts to undermine public confidence in the necessity and effectiveness of vaccines,” Varma said in a statement to The AtlanticHe admitted to attending “two private meetings” during his time in government and said he took responsibility for “not exercising his best judgment at the time.” The statement also said the taped conversations were “secretly recorded, edited, chopped up and taken out of context.”

It’s not clear whether Varma personally violated any COVID rules. The sex parties involved “about 10 people,” according to his statement to podcaster Steven Crowder in an accompanying video. At the time, New York City’s guidelines – which Varma widely promotes – limited gatherings to 10 people or fewer to curb the spread of the virus. A separate city policy on “safer sex and COVID-19” discouraged group sex but did not ban it. (“Limit the size of your guest list. Keep it intimate,” the policy said.) Varma said he hosted sex parties responsibly, noting, “Everyone got tested and stuff like that.” He also said he attended a dance party with hundreds of others in June 2021, after he left government (but while he was still advising the city on COVID policy).

Still, you might think a health official would be better off avoiding all of these events while other city residents are being urged to minimize their social contacts. While Varma hasn’t personally defied official guidelines, others in his family may have gone too far. In the videos, he says that his family traveled to Seattle for Christmas in 2020 and that he didn’t go because the mayor was worried about the optics: Health officials were actively discouraging people from traveling for 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 and hundreds of others attended the dance party, Varma wrote an article for The Atlantic about the delicate calculations behind vaccine mandates and related COVID policies. “Many academic public health experts favor tighter restrictions than public sector practitioners, including myself, believe are realistic,” he wrote. He argued instead for what he called a “more targeted approach—one that neither requires universal sacrifice nor exempts everyone from all inconveniences.”

Perhaps it would have helped if he had shared his own struggles with that tension at the time. Social science research shows that public health messages are most effective at gaining trust when they are informed by 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 faced difficult, familiar decisions that resulted in him being separated from loved ones.

The end result may seem hypocritical, but it is also assignable. (Well, maybe not entirely understandable, but in principle.) “We know that transparency can increase public trust in public health and medical experts,” Matt Motta, who studies vaccine skepticism at the Boston University School of Public Health, told me. What if Varma had been open with the public from the start, even on the subject of his sex parties? Maybe he could have shown that he understands the need to meet up with your friends as safely as possible, in whatever way makes you happy. Even today, his description of that moment strikes a nerve. “It wasn’t so much sex,” he told the woman who was trying to embarrass him. “It was just like, I have to get this energy out of me.” So did all of us.