Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city would require unvaccinated individuals living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to receive the measles vaccine as the city escalated its efforts to stem one of the largest measles outbreaks in decades.
The mayor said the city would issue violations and possibly fines of $1,000 for those who did not comply.
“This is the epicenter of a measles outbreak that is very, very troubling and must be dealt with immediately,” de Blasio said at a news conference in Williamsburg, adding, “The measles vaccine works. It is safe; it is effective; it is time-tested.”
The measure follows a spike in measles infections in New York City, where there have been 285 confirmed cases since the outbreak began in the fall; 21 of those cases led to hospitalizations, including five admissions to the intensive care unit. The majority of the cases have been concentrated in Hasidic communities in Williamsburg and Borough Park, Brooklyn.
Dr. Paul Offit, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said there was precedent for de Blasio’s actions, pointing to a massive measles outbreak in Philadelphia in 1991. During that outbreak, officials in that city went even further, getting a court order to force parents to vaccinate their children.
“I think he’s doing the right thing,” Offit said about de Blasio. “He’s trying to protect the children and the people of the city.”
He added: “I don’t think it’s your unalienable right as a United States citizen to allow your child to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection.”
Health officials, noting that Passover will begin next week, were concerned measles could spread at family gatherings here or abroad.
“The outbreak could in fact especially spread because soon it will be Pesach,” the mayor said. “There will be school vacation. There will be more and more families together. The last thing we want to see is more family members afflicted by this disease.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.