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COURIER L 4 IFE, APRIL 12–18, 2019 M BR B G
Spread of measles virus
leads to public health
emergency in Brooklyn
Four Williamsburg zip codes must get vaccinated
BY COLIN MIXSON
Mayor de Blasio declared a public
health emergency at Brooklyn Public
Library’s Williamsburg Branch
on April 2 in response to the growing
spread of the measles virus in Brooklyn’s
Orthodox Jewish communities,
where nearly 300 people have fallen ill
with the potentially fatal disease since
October.
“We cannot allow this dangerous disease
to make a comeback in New York
City,” said de Blasio. “We have to stop
it now.”
The mayor’s emergency declaration
mandates that residents of four Williamsburg
zip codes — 11205, 11206, 11211,
and 11249 — must seek vaccination, or
face Department of Health violations
and fi nes totaling as much as $1,000 per
unvaccinated person.
The emergency declaration follows
a previously announced Department of
Health exclusion order barring unvaccinated
children from attending schools
and day cares within both Williamsburg
and Borough Park, and demonstrates
a shift in the city’s focus to combating
the disease in the northern Brooklyn
neighborhood, where the majority of
new measles cases have been discovered,
according to de Blasio.
“It is now much more a Williamsburg
problem than a Borough Park problem,”
said the mayor.
De Blasio also touted the city’s authority
to temporarily close schools found in
violation of the Health Department’s exclusion
order as an option of last resort in
combating the spread of measles.
“That is not a tool we want to use, but
it is one we will use if we have no choice,”
de Blasio said.
And throughout the press conference,
city offi cials reiterated the safety and effectiveness
of the measles vaccine, with
the city’s chief physician describing an
annual national death toll that reached
into the hundreds before the measles
vaccine was invented.
“Getting vaccinated is far safer than
getting the measles,” said Department
of Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot.
“The vaccine has been proven safe
and effective in preventing the spread
of measles.”
This is the fi rst time the city has issued
a public health emergency mandating
vaccines, according to Deputy Mayor
of Health and Human Services Dr. Herminia
Palacio, who attributed the need
for the extraordinary measure to the
combination of both a large scale antivaccination
movement and the outbreak
of the potentially fatal illness.
“The combination of a large antivax
movement... with a large outbreak
OUT SICK: Health inspectors traced 40 measles
cases back to Williamsburg’s Yeshiva
Kehilath Yakov, which allowed unvaccinated
kids to attend class. Photo by Colin Mixson
has not happened in the way that it’s
happening right now,” said Palacio.
Offi cials traced the borough’s measles
outbreak to a Brooklyn resident traveling
from Israel — where a similar spread of
the disease infected more than 1,000 people
last year — in October, and the infection
has since affl icted 285 people within
the borough’s Orthodox Jewish Community,
the vast majority of whom are
under 18 years old, according to Health
Department statistics.
So far, 21 people have been hospitalized
with the measles, including fi ve people
who required intensive care, according
to Barbot, who noted there have been
no fatalities.
Since the Health Department issued
its mandatory exclusion order
in December, numerous schools violating
the city’s emergency mandate
played host to mini outbreaks of the extremely
virulent disease, including one
Williamsburg yeshiva that inspectors
have connected to more than 40 cases
since January.
This is the largest outbreak of the
measles that New York City has experienced
since 1991, according to Barbot,
and its spread represents a major spike
over the two infections that plagued New
Yorkers in 2017.
The highly contagious airborne
pathogen produces symptoms including
fever, cough, and a runny nose, and can
cause diarrhea, ear infection, pneumonia,
encephalitis, and death — with about
one of every 1,367 kids infected dying due
to fatal complications from measles.
Symptoms can appear anytime from
seven to 21 days following exposure, according
to the Health Department.
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