GET YOUR DAMN SHOTS
Blaz cracks down on unvaccinated Vows to fine parents, shut schools
The measles outbreak in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community — where parents reportedly hold parties to deliberately infect their children with the potentially deadly disease — has blown so out of control that the mayor declared a public health emergency Tuesday, forcing people to vaccinate or face hefty fines.
Mayor de Blasio and city health officials desperate to stem the spread of the contagion that has reached up to Rockland County and down to Ocean County, N.J., announced that people living in Williamsburg zip codes must get their measles, mumps and rubella shots.
Those refusing to vaccinate could be forced to pay a $1,000 penalty for not complying with the mayor’s edict.
“I urge everyone, especially those in affected areas, to get their (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccines to protect their children, families and communities,” the mayor said at a Williamburg press conference Tuesday.
The city has seen 285 measles cases since the outbreak began in October and nearly all linked to the Orthodox Jewish community. The vast majority of cases — 228 — have been in Williamsburg and there were 26 new cases in the past week. In 2017, there were only two infections citywide and 56 in all of 2018.
Twenty-one people have been hospitalized in the outbreak, the city’s largest since 1991, and most of those infected were unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated. So far 246 children under 18 have gotten sick. No one has died in the outbreak.
The city already threatened to fine and close Jewish religious schools and day cares in Williamsburg if they continue to allow unvaccinated children in classes even after an official mandate.
One yeshiva in Williamsburg that allowed unvaccinated children back into school in January was linked to 40 cases.
Doctors said the spike in cases began after an unvaccinated child traveled to Israel, caught the disease and returned to Brooklyn.
Critics said de Blasio has been soft on yeshivas and the Orthodox community for years because they represent a powerful political constituency in local politics.
“He’s emboldened yeshivas to flout the laws through a number of actions throughout the years,” said Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education Prof. David Bloomfield.
Bloomfield said de Blasio delayed a probe to investigate secular education in yeshivas, softened public health directives around bris rituals and supported the Orthodox practice of lighting bonfires for the holiday of Lag Ba’Omer.
“I think he’s indebted to the Hasidic community,” said Bloomfield of de Blasio. “It’s a constituency that he favors.”
Yaffed Executive Director Naftuli Moster said de Blasio has put politics before public health.
“Mayor de Blasio has finally acted tough on measles because it’s become politically toxic to ignore,” Moster said. “If he wants to show he’s brave —and not beholden to Hasidic leaders — he needs to do the right thing for our children and not play politics with their lives.”
Under the new declaration, the Health Department will deploy “disease detectives” to find out who has come into contact with the infected.
“It parallels what a police detective does,” de Blasio said. “If someone has symptoms, they will literally interview them to figure out everywhere they’ve been, everyone they might have come in contact with, and then they go reach out to that whole network to make sure people are vaccinated.”
Dr. Herminia Palacio, deputy mayor for health and
human services, warned parents that not vaccinating their children not only endangers their own offspring, but puts other children at risk. She urged New Yorkers to call 311 to find out where they can get free vaccinations.
City health officials put the blame on the spread of the disease on a concerted anti-vaccination campaign.
Palacio said parents deliberately spread the virus at “measles parties,” gatherings where uninfected children mingle with infected kids in order to contract the disease.
A nurses’ group that has tracked some of the gatherings said parents use social media and conference calls to organize get-togethers where kids play in close proximity and “share sippy cups.”
“There are parents actively seeking out infected children to infect their own children,” said registered nurse Melody Butler, executive director of Nurses Who Vaccinate, a Long Island-based nonprofit. “That can have devastating results.”
The mayor’s order received a mixed reaction in the Orthodox community.
“It’s true that a lot of people have measles, and measles are not a very good thing,” said Aron Braver, a Williamsburg resident, but he thinks the vaccine is “also not a very good thing.”
“And it’s everybody’s option to do what he wants. What he decides,” Braver added.
Gov. Cuomo said he supports de Blasio’s mandatory vaccination order, but said it raises some thorny issues.
“It’s a serious public health concern, but it’s also a serious First Amendment issue, and it is going to be a constitutional, legal question,” he told radio talk show host Alan Chartock Tuesday.
“Do we have the right — the society, government — have the right to say you must vaccinate your child because I’m afraid your child can infect my child, even if you don’t want it done and even if it violates your religious beliefs? That’s as issue that’s going to be legally questionable.”