Search
Close this search box.

MEASLES OUTBREAK GROWS: More Cases in Williamsburg, Boro Park, Monsey & Lakewood


The NYC Health Department tells YWN that the number of confirmed cases of measles continues to spike.

YWN spoke with Dr. Jane R. Zucker, the Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of Immunization at the NYC Department of Health on Thursday night, and she says that there are now 34 confirmed cases. All of the cases are in Brooklyn – 13 of them are in Williamsburg, 20 are in Boro Park and 1 in Bensonhurst.

Health Department officials are concerned that there is an increase in (disease) transmission in the Boro Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.

“Most of our patients are really very young”, Zucker said.

“Besides for two cases being adults, the rest are all children under the age of five”.

“The vast majority of these cases were unvaccinated, and many of these children could have been vaccinated and this outbreak could have been prevented”.

Dr. Zucker told YWN that they suspect there are many additional cases that have not been properly reported.

Meanwhile, Rockland County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert told YWN that s of November 28, there are 83 confirmed reported cases of measles in the county.

The measles outbreak in Rockland is not limited to one community however it is affecting residents of Spring Valley, New Square, and Monsey. Due to Rockland County’s small geographic size, exposure to the measles may occur ANYWHERE in Rockland. People may shop, dine, and run errands around the county before they realize they are ill, but are contagious.

In addition, anyone who visited the following locations in Spring Valley and West Nyack may have been exposed to measles:

Compare Supermarket on 11/22/2018 between 7 pm – 9:30 pm
210 N. Main Street, Spring Valley, NY 10977

Jalapa Express on 11/24/2018 between 5:30 pm – 7:45 pm
10 S. Main Street, Spring Valley, NY

Best Buy in Palisades Mall (entered and exited through outside entrance and did NOT enter the Mall itself) on 11/24/2018 between 7 pm – 9:30 pm
1240 Palisades Center Drive, W. Nyack, NY 10994

In Lakewood, the Ocean County Health Department tell YWN that:
• There are now 18 confirmed measles cases.
• There are also 6 potential cases under investigation.
• The measles outbreak is presently defined by a rash onset date of October 17, 2018 through November 24, 2018.
• Vaccination is encouraged and those children involved with exposure to a confirmed case may be subject to an order of exclusion, if unvaccinated.
• The Ocean County Health Department continues to support and highly encourage the exclusion of non-vaccinated children from schools, preschools and daycares in the outbreak area. These entities have the authority to make that decision when an outbreak has been declared by the New Jersey Department of Health. The age range so far for the current outbreak is 6 months to 59 years old.

In the City of Passaic, there are three confirmed cases in one household.

The household in Passaic County has a direct epidemiological link to the outbreak in Ocean County (Lakewood), where 18 cases have been confirmed.

Individuals infected with the virus range in age from 6 months to 59 years, according to the NJ State Department of Health.

On Wednesday the girls division of the Yeshiva Ktana of Passaic was closed after a “member” of the school’s community was diagnosed with the measles, said state health officials. The “member” is one of the three confirmed cases in the city, said officials.

On Tuesday morning, YWN published an extensive Psak Halacha written by one of the leading Poskim in the world, Hagaon HaRav Moshe Shternbuch to the Rosh Yeshiva of BMG, HaRav Malkiel Kotler. In the letter translated for YWN, Rav Shternbuch explains why it is a Halachic obligation to vaccinate.

Additionally, the issue of vaccinations was brought up at the Agudah Convention at a panel with HaRav Elya Brudny and Harav Yosef Elefant. The video below is from that session.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)



16 Responses

  1. and each of these people are a genuine threat to the immuno-suppressed and elderly. the term rodef is not to be thrown around but in a circumstance where someone hides their child’s diagnoses for any reason may meet the definition

  2. What a schande! This is the biggest chillul Hashem of the last century. ALL NY cases are in frum neighborhoods! What must the city and the world be thinking?! Terrible, terrible! And the anti-vaxxers still don’t give up. Don’t they know that they will all lose their olam haba for this chillul Hashem??!!

  3. Everyone is blaming the Unvaccinated when it could be the vaccinated who are spreading measles.
    MMR is a LIVE measles vaccine and newly vaccinated can shed the virus for weeks.
    Science Magazine had an article entitled: Measles Outbreak Traced to Fully Vaccinated Patient.

  4. Re. doomsday

    The MMR vaccine does not transmit measles.

    In the year 2000, measles was declared no longer “endemic” in the U.S., which means measles cases stopped occurring naturally in the U.S. before the year 2000. Since then, all cases of measles that have occurred in the U.S. have resulted from individuals who were infected oversees and then who returned to the U.S. and spread the disease here. None have been transmitted by the MMR vaccine.

    In addition, during measles outbreak, the vast majority of people who get infected are not vaccinated against the measles.

    Please read the following description of the largest outbreak of measles (at that time) in the U.S. since 1996:

    On March 13, 2013, an intentionally unvaccinated Orthodox Jewish adolescent aged 17 years returned to New York City from London, United Kingdom, while infected with measles who then spread the disease to others.

    In total, 58 people became infected with measles during the outbreak. All people were members of the Orthodox Jewish in Williamsburg, ranging in age from infancy to 32 years of age. 100% were not vaccinated.

    Here is the link for the official report:
    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6236a5.htm

  5. that’s because occasionally a,titer weakens. You anti VAX are still murderers,and rodefs and will pay,for every miscarriave or stiilborn. Or infertility in males should mumps come back chas vesholom. Or severe birth defects if rubella comes back cholila’

  6. There’s a 9 year old boy in Israel fighting for his life and facing a lifetime of disabilities due to measles. Hos parents will have to live with the guilt that a vaccination would have prevented all the agony. Vaccinate your children please. Measles encephalitis is a very real danger as are other issues.

  7. Dooms: now you’re just getting idiotic. Can’t you even READ??? And it’s in BOLD print for you!! “The vast majority of these cases were unvaccinated, and many of these children could have been vaccinated and this outbreak could have been prevented.” IF YOU REFUSE TO LEARN ANY SCIENCE AT LEAST READ THE ARTICLES AND GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT! This whole outbreak could have been prevented if not for dangerous anti-vaxxers!! Measles vaccine does NOT transmit measles. And your comment “it could be the vaccinated who are transmitting measles “ is an idiotic unsubstantiated lie! You have NO credibility, Dooms! Grow up! You’ve resorted to fabricating information because you have NO data. Again, THIS OUTBREAK COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED if not for you and your ilk.

  8. yaya: yes, the Israel situation is a terrible tragedy! The parents should be convicted and jailed and any other children taken away. A clear case of child abuse!

  9. re. doomsday

    The article mentioned does not mention anything about the MMR vaccine itself causing the spread of measles.

    The Science Magazine article entitled “Measles Outbreak Traced to Fully Vaccinated Patient” is a summary of an article published by investigators at the New York City Bureau of Immunization in the journal called Clinical Infectious Diseases in February 2014.

    The article highlights the case of a 22 year NYC woman who contracted measles despite having received two MMR doses approximately twenty years earlier. The measles spread to four other people. The case was highlighted because it is unusual for a measles outbreak to be caused by a fully vaccinated person.

  10. Yaya-
    And many other children fighting for their life after their MMR or other shots. Please be educated before you vaccinate.

  11. Logical mom, you are not logical because you have no proof linking vaccinations to any disease, it’s all assumptions. You are playing with human lives based on your assumptions.

  12. Re: Doomsday,
    From the article you mentioned;
    If it turns out that vaccinated people lose their immunity as they get older, that could leave them vulnerable to measles outbreaks seeded by unvaccinated people—which are increasingly common in the United States and other developed countries. Even a vaccine failure rate of 3% to 5% could devastate a high school with a few thousand students, says Robert Jacobson, director of clinical studies for the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group in Rochester, Minnesota, who wasn’t involved with the study. Still, he says, “The most important ‘vaccine failure’ with measles happens when people refuse the vaccine in the first place.”

Leave a Reply


Popular Posts