Amid crackdown, vaccinations on rise in NY county with many ultra-Orthodox

Some parents who had resisted having their children vaccinated reluctantly brought them in for a measles shot Wednesday, as a state of emergency took effect in a county in New York City’s northern suburbs.

Rockland County enacted the emergency order Tuesday night to fight a measles outbreak that has infected more than 150 people since last fall. The order bans unvaccinated children under 18 years of age from public places such as schools, stores and churches.

Loreen Costa told the Rockland Journal News she brought her son to his pediatrician for a vaccination Wednesday after getting a robocall from his school explaining the ban. School districts contacted parents of unvaccinated children and told them not to attend classes Wednesday.

Lainie Goldstein of Grandview said her son’s middle school principal called her and said the boy can’t attend school until he’s vaccinated. She said she had chosen not to vaccinate him because she did “not want to injure” him, but she brought him to the pediatrician Wednesday for the injection.

“I feel like I am being bullied right now to go get vaccinations,” she told the Journal News.

There has been a growing trend of parents refusing to vaccinate their children, due to various discredited claims that the life-saving practice is dangerous.

About 30 people got measles vaccinations at a free county clinic Wednesday.

“I think that something needs to be done that has to be very drastic, that people need to comply and we’ve got to stop this,” said Rockland resident Renee Kahan, who stopped by the clinic for a booster shot. “This outbreak is serious.”

The emergency order, which lasts for 30 days, was enacted because people weren’t cooperating with health officials working to stop the outbreak, said Rockland County attorney Thomas Humbach.

Humbach said police won’t be stopping people and asking for vaccination records. But if officials become aware that an unvaccinated person has been in a public place, law enforcement will get involved, he said. Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.

Gary Siepser, CEO of the Jewish Federation and Foundation of Rockland County, said the disease’s spread was related to the anti-vaccine movement across the country.

“It has found its way through social media and confused parents and confused people about the importance of vaccination,” Siepser said. “And it just happens that there’s a group in Rockland County that has bought into that.”

The county is experiencing New York state’s longest measles outbreak since the disease was declared officially eliminated from the United States in 2000. Health officials say the best way to stop the disease’s spread is a vaccination rate in the community of 92 to 95 percent. Day said only 72.9% of people under 18 have been vaccinated against measles in Rockland County, which has more than 300,000 residents.

The disease started in the area when seven unvaccinated travelers diagnosed with measles entered the county last October, and has spread to 153 cases to date, Day said. In the early days of the outbreak, people were cooperating with health officials and getting children vaccinated, he said, but that has changed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists six measles outbreaks, defined as three or more cases, around the country in 2019, including Rockland County’s. The CDC said the outbreaks are linked to travelers who brought the disease back from other countries such as Israel and Ukraine, where large measles outbreaks are occurring.

There have been 181 confirmed cases of measles in Brooklyn and Queens since October, most of them involving members of the Orthodox Jewish community, according to the CDC.

The CDC says 15 states have had at least one case of measles confirmed in 2019, for a total of 314 cases to date. In 2014, 667 cases were confirmed nationwide and there were 372 cases in 2018.

Israel has seen a renewed outbreak of measles since March of last year, with at least 2,857 cases reported. Infections have mostly centered on the country’s ultra-Orthodox community, where inoculation rates have generally been low.

For adults the highly contagious disease is usually fairly benign. However, in infants and young children it can be deadly and can have several severe complications including pneumonia and encephalitis. In rare cases a deadly inflammation of the brain can occur years after recovery from the disease.