Unvaccinated children banned from public places

Rockland county, north of New York, has taken the radical step of banning unvaccinated children from public spaces to help stop a Measles outbreak.

The county has seen 153 confirmed cases of measles since October with only 73% of children under 18 in the area fully vaccinated.

“We must not allow this outbreak to continue indefinitely or worsen,” said county executive Ed Day. “We will not sit idly by while children in our community are at risk.”

The emergency order, which took effect at midnight, says that children who have not been vaccinated must stay away from schools, shopping centres, restaurants, houses of worship, and all other indoor public places. Outdoor locations like parks and sidewalks are not covered.

Officials have stressed that they will not be stopping people on the street to ask for vaccination records. Instead, choosing to enforce the ban retroactively. Parents face up to six months in jail or a $500 fine — or both — if epidemiological investigations reveal that they allowed their unvaccinated children to enter a public place while the ban was in effect.

Though measles was declared eradicated from the United States in 2000, outbreaks have now recently been reported in certain pockets of the country where false claims that vaccines cause autism have led to parents refusing to protect their children.

Measles is highly contagious—according to the CDC, 90% of non-immunised individuals near an infected person will contract it—and can have serious complications, such as pneumonia and encephalitis. Sometimes, these complications prove fatal.

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