What New Yorkers Need To Know About The BK Measles Outbreak

NEW YORK, NY — A national, and international, outbreak of the measles has hit one of the city's outer boroughs, so much so that Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency this week. But what exactly does that mean for the Brooklyn area it was declared in, and the rest of the city?

Here is Patch's guide to everything you need to know to stay safe during the disease outbreak, which has spiked at 285 cases this week.

What are the measles?

Measles is a highly contagious disease that can cause pneumonia, brain swelling and death, according to the city's health department. It is transmitted by airborne particles, droplets or direct contact with the "respiratory secretions" of an infected person. Symptoms will typically appear 10 to 12 days after exposure, but can start as early as seven days or as late as 21 in some cases.

The early symptoms could include fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes. A rash is a typical symptom within four days of exposure and usually will start on the face and proceed down the body. Infected people are contagious from four days before this rash appears to the fourth day after it shows up, the health department said.

The disease is particularly dangerous for those with weak immune systems, infants and pregnant women. In these people complications can include miscarriage, death, premature birth, brain swelling, lung swelling, ear infections, diarrhea or death.

Where is the outbreak and how did it start?

The outbreak began in October and has hit Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish Communities, namely in Williamsburg and Borough Park, health officials have said. The initial case in Brooklyn was in a person who acquired the disease during a visit to Israel, where a large outbreak of the disease is occurring. Several others traveling to Israel also became infected since that first case and at least two cases were in people who acquired the diseases in the U.K. and Ukraine.

Kings County is not the only area to experience this most recent outbreak, either.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that there have been 465 cases of measles confirmed in 19 states across the country so far this year. This is in addition to the 372 cases in 2018.

The 2019 numbers are the second-greatest number of cases reported in the United States since measles was eliminated in 2000, the agency said.

The reported cases this year include those in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

Why don't some people want to get vaccinated?

Most of the people who have been infected with measles across the country were not vaccinated against the disease, the CDC found.

In New York City, the city's health officials have struggled with those in the Orthodox Jewish community that do not vaccinate their children and, in some cases, have ignored city orders and sent them to school anyway. Part of the resistance to vaccinate has come from a national increase in the anti-vax campaign, which includes parents who question the vaccination's efficacy and fear it might cause autism.

"We have seen over the last several years an increasing anti-vax campaign — we are certainly seeing it in New York," Herminia Palacio, the city's deputy mayor of Health and Human Services, said in a press conference this week. "...There are people actually urging people against vaccines. We need to get the right information out."

Just this week, officials revealed that some Brooklyn parents have been taking their children to "measles parties" to intentionally expose them to the disease instead of getting vaccinated.

The tradition dates back the 19th Century, decades before the MMR vaccine was developed in 1971, when parents would expose their children to the disease in hopes of building a natural immunity against diseases such as measles and chicken pox.

New York State also allows for religious exemptions to vaccination rules, but legislators have recently argued that these are more often used by parents with philosophical, not faith-based, objections to the vaccination. Two Bronx and Manhattan lawmakers are pushing for the state to only allow exemptions for medical reasons.

Parents have been sharing instructions on how to apply for vaccine exemptions on websites, social media, and in online forums, said health officials, arguing such "anti-vaxxer propaganda" was preying on New York's Orthodox Jewish community. Haaretz journalist Debra Nussbaum Cohen noted in her coverage of the Brooklyn measles outbreak that Haredi, hit hard by the outbreak, has a culture that prefers to find answers to its problems within its community rather than trust outside authorities.

The city's Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said during the conference that the vaccine, which has a 97 percent success rate at preventing measles, is the "safest and most effective method for preventing" the disease.

What has the city done about it?

The city started its efforts to stop the outbreak last year, including a December mandate that certain zip codes in Borough Park and Williamsburg not send their unvaccinated children back to school until the outbreak is over.

Some yeshivas in these zip codes, though, continued to not follow these orders, including one in Williamsburg that has since been linked to more than 40 measles cases.

This week, the city's health department upped the stakes for the exclusion order, sending out "Commissioner's Orders" to these schools, meaning they would immediately be given a violation and face fines or school closure should they not follow the rules.

The Department has also worked with elected officials, community organizations, and religious leaders to educate residents in these ZIP codes about the risks associated with measles and the importance of vaccination. The effort has resulted in over 7,000 people receiving the MMR vaccine as of March.

In February, the Department expanded vaccination recommendations for providers serving the Orthodox Jewish community to include an early, extra dose of the MMR vaccine for children between the ages of 6 months to 11 months who live in Williamsburg and Borough Park.

The public health emergency this week expanded these requirements further, mandating that every person in the designated zip codes get a vaccine within 48 hours of the declaration or face a $1,000 fine.

The health emergency applies to zip codes 11205, 11206, 11221 and 11249.

What do I need to do about it?

If you live in one of the zip codes named in the public health emergency, you were required to get vaccinated this week. The health department will have the ability to access health records of people in those boroughs and fine them $1,000 if they did not get the vaccination within the 48-hour window.

Here are the health department's list of precautions that New Yorkers should take:

• Call 311 to access a list of facilities that can provide MMR at low or no cost.
• Make sure they have been vaccinated with the MMR vaccine before traveling to Europe or Israel. Infants ages 6 to 11 months should also be vaccinated prior to travel.
• New Yorkers who believe they were exposed to the measles or have symptoms should contact their health care provider before seeking care to prevent exposure to other patients.
• Visit the Health Department's Measles page for more information.