Rejoinder to article, "Health inspector ratings of Asian restaurants during the early COVID-19 pandemic," published by Cherng et al. On Nov. 29, 2022.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (Health Department) has responded to an article that claimed their workforce discriminated against Asian restaurants during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Health Department conducted an investigation and found no evidence of bias against Asian restaurants in their inspectional data. They also criticized the authors of the article for using an incomplete dataset and not reaching out for assistance or collaboration. The Health Department presented their own analysis of inspection results, which showed no evidence of an uptick in violations among Asian restaurants. They concluded that the findings of the article are erroneous and rejected the accusations of discrimination. [Extracted from the article]