The areas of
Williamsburg and
Borough Park, two Brooklyn neighborhoods with a high concentration of
Orthodox Jews, have been most heavily affected. New York City mayor
Bill de Blasio declared a
public health emergency on April 9, 2019. At that point, 285 cases of measles had been reported in Brooklyn and Queens since the October 2018. De Blasio's declaration required
mandatory vaccinations in the neighborhoods corresponding to the
zip codes 11205, 11206, 11211, and 11249. This required that everyone living or working in the neighborhood who is more than six months old receive a vaccination or be subject to a $1,000 fine. Prior to this order, the health commissioner had required schools and day care centers in the area to deny service to unvaccinated students to prevent the disease from spreading further. In April, city officials ordered the closure of a preschool that had refused to cooperate with requests for vaccination information. From October to April, 153 cases of measles were confirmed in
Rockland County, New York. Despite 17,000 doses of the MMR vaccination being given, the vaccination rate of children in the area was 72.9 percent as of April. In December 2018, public health officials in Rockland County banned unvaccinated students from attending school. Parents of 42 students at
Green Meadow Waldorf School, a private school, sued the Rockland County health department, but a judge denied the request to over turn the order. According to the health department, Green Meadow Waldorf School had a 56% vaccination rate. In March 2019, a flight attendant flew from NYC to Tel Aviv, Israel. Passengers on the flight were informed several days later that the woman had developed
measles encephalitis and is in the
ICU on a
ventilator. The
Israeli Ministry of Health reported that the woman may have been exposed in New York or in Israel. By mid-May 2019, measles cases in the United States had passed 800, with New York having the largest number of cases, with 274 to that point. On September 3, 2019, the New York City Health Department declared the outbreak to be over, due to the passage of a sufficient period of time with no new cases being reported in the city. NYC Health reported 649 total cases, with 473 cases in Williamsburg and 121 cases in Borough Park. 33,805 doses of the MMR vaccine were administered to people younger than 19 years old in Williamsburg and Borough Park. ==Responses==