UPDATE (4/5/2019) - Parents of children affected by the order banning unvaccinated minors from going to school, church, synagogue, shopping centers, etc., have filed a lawsuit against the Rockland Co. (NY) Executive, seeking to have the order ruled illegal and quashed.
The judge says that he will rule on the matter, today, Friday, April 5th.
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The Rockland County (NY) Executive, Mr. Ed Day, issued an order banning minors unvaccinated against measles from congregating in places where 10 or more people may gather - effective at midnight, tonight.
This means that children who are not up-to-date on their vaccines according to the CDC’s schedule will be banned from church, school, restaurants, and other such places, for the next 30 days.
Frighteningly, this order also threatens parents of children who violate this ban with a $500 fine, or 6 months in jail.
Not only is this an outrageous attack on personal freedom and parental rights, it also leaves many wondering if the next step is forced vaccinations.
Please SIGN this urgent petition, asking the County Executive to rescind the vaccines order and focus resources on the communities involved, rather than punishing all families who have medical and ethical objections to vaccination.
County official John Lyon, the strategic director of communications for Rockland County, acknowledged that this is an ‘extremely unusual’ step, and admitted that: “[We] don't believe it's been done anywhere in the country before.”
This draconian order comes amid what county health officials are calling a measles ‘outbreak’ - this ‘outbreak’ has been going on since October and infected 153 people total.
To put this into perspective, approximately 329,000 people live in Rockland County.
And, the measles infections have mostly focused on small enclaves of observant Jews, as an individual from their community traveled to Israel last October and returned with the infection.
Perhaps it’s also worth mentioning here, that while measles can be a serious illness, this ‘outbreak’ has hospitalized just a few people.
But, rather than focus quarantine efforts on the specific communities involved, the County Executive has decided to apply this order too broadly, punishing all parents who have medical and ethical problems with vaccinating their children.
County officials are essentially punishing these children (keeping them from religious services and school) with the expectation that objecting parents will relent and have them vaccinated.
This measure is simply too broad, and is a further insertion by the state into private medical and ethical decisions made by parents who are opposed to vaccinations.
Nevertheless, according to Lyon, this order will be enforced by referring the parents of unvaccinated children to the district attorney’s office - to face possible fines and jail time - if the children are suspected of infecting other people in public places.
But, because the order doesn’t apply to adults, as county officials “didn’t want to prevent people going to work”, it’s unclear how a determination of “who infected whom” could actually work in practice.
SIGN now to STOP more government intrusion into the area of parental rights!
Thank you for SIGNING and SHARING this urgent petition, now!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/26/health/rockland-new-york-measles-unvaccinated-ban-bn/index.html
