NYC to require vaccinations in parts of Brooklyn
NEW YORK — For months, New York City officials have been fighting a measles outbreak in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, knowing that the solution — the measles vaccine — was not reaching its target population.
They tried education and outreach, working with rabbis and distributing thousands of flyers to encourage parents to vaccinate their children. They also tried harsher measures, like a ban on unvaccinated students from going to school.
But with measles cases still on the rise and an anti-vaccination movement spreading, city health officials Tuesday took a more drastic step to stem one of the largest measles outbreaks in decades.
Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency that would require unvaccinated individuals living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to receive the measles vaccine. The mayor said the city would issue violations and possibly fines of $1,000 for those who did not comply.
“This is the epicenter of a measles outbreak that is very, very troubling and must be dealt with immediately,” de Blasio said
at a news conference in Williamsburg, adding: “The measles vaccine works. It is safe, it is effective, it is time-tested.”
The measure follows a spike in measles infections in New York City, where there have been 285 confirmed cases since the outbreak began in the fall; 21 of those cases led to hospitalizations,
including five admissions to the intensive care unit.
City officials conceded that the earlier order in December, which banned unvaccinated students from attending schools in certain sections of Brooklyn, was not effective. De Blasio said Tuesday that the city would fine or even temporarily shut down
yeshivas that did not abide by the measure.
“There has been some real progress in addressing the issue, but it’s just not working fast enough, and it was time to take a more muscular approach,” de Blasio said.
To enforce the order, health officials said they did not intend to perform random spot checks on students; instead, as new measles cases arose, officials would check the vaccination records of any individuals who were in contact with those infected.
“The point here is not to fine people but to make it easier for them to get vaccinated,” Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the city’s health commissioner, said at the news conference.
Across the country, there have been 465 measles cases since the start of 2019, with 78 new cases in the past week alone, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.
In 2018, New York and New Jersey accounted for more than half of the measles cases in the country, and the continuing outbreak has led to unusual measures.
Dr. Paul Offit, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said there was precedent for de Blasio’s actions, pointing to a massive measles outbreak in Philadelphia in 1991. During that outbreak, officials in that city went even further, getting a court order to force parents to vaccinate their children.
“I think he’s doing the right thing,” Offit said about de Blasio. “He’s trying to protect the children and the people of the city.”