11 Apr Still trying to make sense of the Hasidic anti-vaxxers

The measles virus continues to spread, and now the Mayor of New York City has ordered all Williamsburg kids to vaccinate or face a fine. I am set up to get Google Alerts for news about the Hasidic community, and I am getting floods of links to stories about the anti-vaxxers in the community. I am still trying to jive how the stories in the news, in which the measles epidemic seems to be fueled by anti-vaxxers, matches my on-the-ground experience of the Hasidic community.

Here is what I have come to understand. A community needs 95% vaccinated population in order for the community to have herd immunity and not to be vulnerable to the outbreak. In any community, you will have a population that is unable to vaccinate, either those too young or allergic or with compromised immune systems. But these unvaccinated people will be fine so long as there is herd immunity, which, for a very contagious disease like measles that can be spread by just coughing, needs to be very high. This leaves room for only about 5% to opt out before the her immunity is breached MMR. In a community where almost every home has a baby and many are too young for the vaccine, the 5% is much more easily reached. Herd immunity is so delicate.

It looks like the measles outbreak took off when the community dropped below herd immunity rates. It was the perfect recipe for disaster when a lot of scary information about vaccines made its way around the womenfolk, and people either hesitated or delayed vaccinations. On top of that, schools didn’t insist or stay on top of its students immunization status, and doctors and community leaders didn’t aggressively counter these scary ideas. I know my son would never be enrolled in Public School without being either up to date on his shots or an exemption, but Hasidic schools can be much more lax, especially when people already forgot how bad outbreaks can be.

While the community clearly dropped below immunity, we have to ask by what ratio. Notice that according to a pro-vaccine KJ publication titled “Tzim Gezint”, the main Satmar school has only 2% vaccine exemptions. In Williamsburg, where people consider themselves a bit more worldly and are more likely to deviate from community norms, there are probably more exemptions. According to CBS2, about 100 families in Williamsburg are against vaccines. Sure, the city estimated that 1,800 children in the Hasidic Williamsburg neighborhood hadn’t been vaccinated as of December 2018 – when we just started to hear about the measles outbreak. But there has been a huge uptick in vaccinations since.

In the news, the anti-vaxxers take center stage. Their continued absurd stance is painted as the key to the problem. For instance watch these two women, whose way of thinking and modeling for the Dunning Kruger effect makes me want to tear my hair out.

But do these women reflect mainstream views? Are they anomalies? Considering they showed up to the Brooklyn Library for the announcement by the mayor and were willing to be on camera, I’d say probably not. I am wondering if these folks are going to be the Naturei Karte of the measles issue. The Naturei Karte is a radical fringe anti-zionist group which loves media attention, and even though the people who subscribe to it are a minority, they are so vocal, they are lodged in the popular imagination as the example of a standard Hasidic Jew.

What’s important to realize that once herd immunity has been compromised, the virus can spread even if the population is now up to date. It spreads to the unvaccinated population. This from the Times: “Dr. Yakov Kiffel, a pediatrician in Monsey in Rockland County, said that he has both vaccinated children and treated about a half-dozen patients with measles since the fall. He said the majority of the sick were under 6 months old — the age at which a child can be given the first dose of the M.M.R. vaccine — and members of families that said they vaccinate.”

In other words, the cat is out of the bag. Now, even if the mayor gets everyone to comply, herd immunity is destroyed, and the 5% or so who shouldn’t be vaccinated are very, very vulnerable. Think a cancer patient. Think someone very ill. Think all those tiny babies coming down with measles. They are all now susceptible even if everyone complies after-the-fact. I think the community and health officials should learn, really learn, that if you don’t vaccinate before a problem comes to town, you can’t simply quickly run to get your shots and solve the problem. Contrary to what that lady proudly believes about the problems of vaccines, preventive measures like herd immunity do a lot of good. The old adage… an ounce of prevention is worth — a thousand dollar fine and terrible medical risks and babies with red splotchy rashes and a terrible health scare for everyone else.