NYC closes 10th Jewish school for violating vaccine order

New York City closes an Orthodox school in Brooklyn because it continues to admit unvaccinated students in violation of a city order.

Central UTA Satmar School for Boys, a Hassidic school in the Williamsburg district, will be closed Tuesday afternoon for violating provisions for vaccines and vaccination records. Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned. It's the 10th Orthodox school in New York to be closed this year because of this problem, according to a city official familiar with the issue.

Williamsburg, which has a large Orthodox population, has been experiencing a measles outbreak since last year that infected 588 people in New York. Nearly three quarters of these cases occurred in Williamsburg. The city says that the epidemic is largely concentrated in the Orthodox community.

In April, the city declared a public health emergency linked to the epidemic, forcing residents of four Williamsburg postcodes to vaccinate. The city also announced that it would close in Williamsburg schools allowing unvaccinated students to attend school. Nine of the 10 schools closed to date are in Williamsburg. The 10 is in the borough of Queens.

In addition, over the past week the city has summoned 173 people for public health emergency order violations, 68 of whom have been vaccinated or have provided evidence of public health emergencies. ;immunization.

The Orthodox authorities have urged their communities to vaccinate and their advocates have claimed that orthodox vaccination rates in Brooklyn are high.

But according to data shared by the New York City Department of Health in early 2018, only 67 percent of Williamsburg children aged 19 to 35 months received their first dose of the measles vaccine, compared to 88 percent on average in the city. . More recent data was not available.

According to data from the State Department of Education, more than 20 orthodox schools in Brooklyn had vaccination rates lower than 90% last year. Experts recommend a vaccination rate of at least 95%.

Rockland County in New York, home to the highly orthodox city of Monsey, has also had a significant number of measles cases. According to state data, only about 77% of the country is vaccinated.

In the case of Satmar School, said the city official, the school officials did not meet the deadlines for providing the city with the vaccination records of the students. When these files were received, surveys showed that the school still admitted unvaccinated students and teachers.

The school has not responded to a JTA request for comment. But a parent at school said JTA that the problem lies in influential families in the community who do not vaccinate their children and continue to send them to school, even though the school has asked them not to attend. In general, said the parent, the school encourages vaccination.

"The school approves it, and they warn everyone to vaccinate, but then it's in power that people do not, and then that's where the problem comes up," said the parent. . "You have people in power, for example, someone who gives a lot of money to the yeshiva, or who is a big rabbi, and his son does not vaccinate … You can send them back at home for a day, for two days, but you know, then he'll come back … You can not send him back for all. "

The school is not warned of its closure so that school administrators do not falsify documents in advance.

To reopen his doors, the official said the school had to draw up a corrective action plan to ensure that it would no longer admit unvaccinated students. Teachers will need to know how to act if an unvaccinated student is present. Before the reopening of the school, the city will have to approve its plan.

City officials will check every day to make sure the school remains closed in the meantime.

The city announced Tuesday afternoon that more than 3,800 measles vaccines had been administered to children in Williamsburg during the two months following the announcement of the public health emergency, near the twice the quantity administered during the same period last year.