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A judge of the state Supreme Court announced today that he would rule within 24 hours on the legality of the Ed Day emergency ordinance of the executive council of the Rockland County prohibiting unvaccinated children from schools, places of worship and other public places.
Peter Carr, [email protected]
NEW CITY – A Judge today canceled the Rockland County Executive Day Emergency Statement, Ed Day, prohibiting unvaccinated measles children from attending schools, places of worship and other public places.
The injunction of Acting Supreme Court Justice Rolf Thorsen said that the 166 cases cited by the county since the start of the measles outbreak last October have not occurred. had not reached the level of an epidemic nor constituted a disaster. Mr. Day's decision to rely on executive law to establish the emergency declaration "may have been misplaced".
Thorsen agreed with families who sued the county when they said that their children would continue to miss school and that parents would continue to incur pecuniary expenses as a result of the order. Families claimed that the children posed no threat to other children in a school where no measles case had been reported.
Michael Sussman, a lawyer of several dozens of parents whose unvaccinated children attend the Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge, said the decision showed that the judge was in agreement with his assertion that the statement of claim was "uncomfortable." urgency "would be an inappropriate vehicle for such an order".
"We expect all schools in the county, where children who are exempt from religion and banned from religion (…), have returned to school to continue their education," Sussman said Friday after -midday.
Although Thorsen 's injunction is temporary, the fate of the state of emergency is not clear. The county has the opportunity to file documents before the court appearance on April 19, but by then, the state of emergency of 30 days of Day would be almost over.
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The County Executive, Ed Day, on the right, and Health Commissioner, Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, take stock of the effects of the declaration on the state of emergency in the new city on Friday, March 29, 2019. (Photo: John Meore / The News Journal)
Day expressed disappointment at the decision but maintained his belief that order made a difference.
"Although Judge Thorsen 's decision today did not go according to plan, I would like to congratulate those in Rockland who have used this emergency as an opportunity to be vaccinated and given the opportunity to do so. Talk to their friends and neighbors about immunization, "he said. A declaration. "We looked for a new way to fight a disease that had been eradicated almost 20 years ago, and we refused to sit back and Rockland was threatened."
Attracted the attention of the whole world
The Thorsen decision followed Thursday afternoon's arguments in two lawsuits filed by parents whose unvaccinated children were affected by the state of emergency introduced on March 26 by the government. County Executive.
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This order was aimed at curbing a measles outbreak that began in October when an Israeli traveler made it to the county. A large portion of the 167 cases occurred in the Orthodox and Hasidic Island communities of the Monsey and Spring Valley area.
In addition to enticing hundreds of people to be vaccinated, the state of emergency has drawn worldwide attention and has plunged the country into debates about civil and political rights. related to the vaccination of children.
MEASLES: Judge Thorsen to Decide Friday on Protest Rockland Urgency Ban
ROCKLAND MEASLES: Trial challenges Ed Day's order of urgency
EPIDEMIC OF MEASLES:Lawmakers act to end religious exemptions from vaccines during an epidemic
Thorsen's decision was in line with Sussman's complaint Wednesday, saying that families had been irreparably harmed by the ban on their children going to school and limiting their travel, schooling and education. activities and their daily activities.
Children all benefit from a religious exemption regarding immunization, which is recognized by the law on education, but is prohibited under the state of emergency established by Day.
Green Meadow, a non-denominational, non-denominational private school from kindergarten to grade 12, is not involved in this legal action. School officials said there were no measles cases in the area.
The parents, who are only identified by their initials, claimed that Day had exceeded his authority by using an emergency declaration intended to stop a disaster or other one-off event and not an ongoing health emergency. It also states that the individual orders constituting the declaration may only be issued for five days without being renewed.
"What's important is the overbreadth, its indefensibleness," said Sussman, Green Meadow's parents' attorney, at the conclusion of the hearing that took place. is held Thursday in court.
Why not quarantine measles?
Sussman reiterated his thesis that the order of urgency is simply a case of indictment by public officials.
He added: "People's lives are affected even if they are not themselves carriers of the disease, nor are they affected, but those affected by the disease are not quarantine while they are many smaller number.This is the way to proceed. "
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Lawyer Michael Sussman speaks in front of the Rockland County Courthouse after a state of emergency hearing on Rockland County due to measles on April 4, 2019. (Photo: Peter Carr / The News Journal)
But Rockland County attorney Thomas Humbach, representing the county executive, told the judge, "To try to put the quarantine at this stage, we should open a sanatorium."
Humbach argued that Day had invoked the state of emergency in a lawful and appropriate manner in response to a crisis that was likely to be much larger than the 166 reported cases.
"The number of business we know is different from the number of business there is," Humbach said at Thursday 's hearing before Thorsen. "There are estimates that the number of cases that exists is greater than the one we know, from two to four thousand."
The county attorney argued that it was imperative to strike a balance between the freedoms of some people and the need to end the attacks of a highly contagious virus that, he says, were spreading across the county and not just in isolated areas.
Without this ban, it could spread to infants and disabled people with serious complications such as encephalitis, warned Humbach.
Measles: epidemic or epidemic
At Thursday's hearing, Thorsen asked Humbach, "Where does an epidemic end and an epidemic begin?"
Humbach replied that the words were used in the same way, and stated that the number of cases of measles and the destruction caused by them justified the situation as an emergency.
The judge also asked Humbach if the county ordinance could have been adapted more restrictively rather than its scope.
Humbach said the county had considered reducing the age and location of schools and places of worship, but had decided otherwise.
Subsequently, he stated "that it is not up to the county executive to look after the individuals.The county executive is accountable to the entire county population and uses the powers that are assigned to him. conferred by law to follow the path it deems appropriate to protect the population. " population as a whole. In this case, the good of the many should override the preferences of a few or one. "
Another complaint filed Wednesday on behalf of a Rockland County mother and her unidentified unvaccinated daughter also targets the county for failing to quarantine people with measles.
Vaccinations against religious freedom
The complaint filed by attorney Patricia Finn alleges that Ed Day 's emergency order discriminates against persons enjoying a religious exemption from vaccination and violates their religious freedom by preventing them from celebrating Easter or Passover in places of worship.
Finn is a Piermont lawyer who represents clients injured by childhood vaccines and specializes in cases involving religious and medical exemptions to vaccination.
"Pharmaceutical companies dominate the media," Finn told the judge. "They scare people and the county executive reacts to that."
Finn pleaded before Thorsen against the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine even against measles, mumps and rubella.
But Humbach said Finn's claims were "not science and medicine accepted by medical institutions".
"In the balance between religion and science, the courts say that public health is a priority," he said.
Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, Health Commissioner for Rockland County, has stopped promoting the safety and effectiveness of the measles vaccine and reminded the public of the potential severity of the complications of the virus.
The health commissioner said last week that about 17,600 MMR vaccines had been administered since the start of the epidemic in October, a number that has already increased by nearly 700 since the declaration of the disease. 39, state of emergency.
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