New York county declares state of emergency amid measles outbreak

Measles-stricken New York county declares state of emergency banning unvaccinated children from public places

  • More than 150 people have been diagnosed with measles in Rockland County, New York
  • The majority of the sick individuals are part of Orthodox Jewish communities 
  • County health officials have banned unvaccinated minors from public places
  • The ban goes into effect at midnight and will last 30 days  

Rockland County, New York, has declared a state of emergency over the measles outbreak that has sickened 151 in the county. 

Health officials are banning unvaccinated people under 18 from public places for the next 30 days. 

That will include a requirement that children without proof of vaccination be kept home from school. 

The county-wide protective ban will take effect at midnight Wednesday March 27. 

Rockland County, New York, officials have banned unvaccinated minors from public places, effective midnight tonight, for the next 30 days or until they get vaccinated amid 150-person measles outbreak, the local government announced Tuesday 

Nowhere in the US has more cases of measles than Rockland County.  

Rockland’s population is just under 329,000, and 151 people there have the preventable illness. 

Five days ago, county officials warned that its measles outbreak was not over. 

In fact, it added several more locations where residents may have been expose to measles. 

The outbreak is spreading like wildfire in several areas of the county, but primarily among Orthodox Jewish communities. 

Distrust in doctors, concerns over the dangers of vaccines and confusion about the attitude of Jewish law toward vaccination have helped to fuel low vaccination rates there. 

Public health officials are warning that pregnant, immunocompromised, unvaccinated and young people avoid six different locations in the area. 

They are urging anyone who has not gotten an MMR shot to contact the health department to arrange to get vaccinated against the highly contagious disease for free as soon as possible. 

Already in December, the county health commissioner Dr Patricia Schnabel Ruppert barred unvaccinated students from attending schools in two zip codes where vaccination rates were below 95 percent – beneath the herd immunity threshold. 

Now, that ban has extended to the entire county. 

Students will not be allowed to attend school for 30 days or until they get vacinated, the health department announced.  

Dr Dan Salmon, a Johns Hopkins University vaccine safety specialist and member of the university’s Vaccine Initiative, said he supports the month-long ban. 

‘I think it’s a reasonable measure in the midst of an outbreak,’ he said. 

‘The health department has the authority and an obligation to protect the community and those [members who] are vulnerable,’ like children with compromised immune systems. 

 

 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk