Wednesday, April 24, 2019
How hotels hosting Passover travelers are dealing with measles outbreak
In January, before a measles outbreak spread throughout Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in New York, Channie Klor booked a Passover stay at a hotel in Pennsylvania for her family of seven.
Four months later, more than 500 cases of the disease have spread throughout the United States in an outbreak linked to Orthodox Jews, especially unvaccinated Hasidim who were infected. And the disease is highly contagious: A single Orthodox traveler from Israel, who went to Michigan via New York City, is alleged to have spread the disease to 39 people after he was misdiagnosed.
That left Klor with a dilemma: Stay home, immunize her 8-month-old baby early in the recommended range for the immunization, or stay away from public areas for the length of her hotel stay.
It’s a calculation that was made by many of the tens of thousands of religious Jews who are filling hotels for Passover, dining and mingling in close quarters for eight days.
This year, program organizers in the Greater New York City area are trying to make sure that their clientele isn’t carrying the disease. None who spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency said they asked for vaccine records. But some said they had asked their guests to be vaccinated before they arrive at the hotel.
“We notified all the people that if they are not taking shots, they cannot come to our hotel,” said Rabbi Motty Katz, manager of the Katz Pesach program at the Long Island Hilton in Huntington, New York. “We’re going to be very strict on that… If you don’t take a shot, don’t go to a public place.”
Rabbi Yitzchok Neger, one of the managers of the Passover program at the Wyndham Golf Resort in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said he was “pretty confident we don’t have any virus or contagious situation where we are, with the guests we have.”
Most of his 1,300 guests are not Hasidim.
The measles outbreak has been linked to low vaccination rates. Jane Zucker, assistant commissioner of New York City’s Bureau of Immunization, says largely Hasidic Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, has one of the lowest rates of vaccine coverage among young children.
Agudath Israel of America, which represents haredi Jews, insists that the Orthodox neighborhoods with outbreaks have vaccination rates rivaling those of “many other municipalities,” but that their communities may be more susceptible for other reasons: Its members travel abroad frequently and have tightly related social networks, as well as many children at ages most susceptible to the disease.
Asking guests not to come if they are not immunized would be the best approach for hotels to take, said L’via Weisinger, a member of Emes, Hebrew for “truth,” a new group of Orthodox nurses that encourages vaccination. Had Weisinger theoretically been able to set policy at a hotel, she would have asked every guest to vaccinate and then checked their immunization records at the door.
“You don’t have a right as a citizen to go to a Pesach hotel,” she said. “It’s private, so if they say ‘Unless you’re vaccinated, you’re not welcome,’ there’s nothing wrong with that. Here’s your money back.”
In the end, Klor decided to give her baby an early MMR shot. In total, about 30 members of her extended family are spending Passover at the Wyndham Golf Resort. Had she not been able to immunize her kids, she said, Klor would have spent the holiday keeping them out of the hotel’s public spaces.
Even outside of the Passover hotel industry, the holiday leads to people crowding together on planes, in synagogue and in stores. A pre-Passover clothing drive in Baltimore required those attending to sign a legal waiver that they had been vaccinated. Klor said that in South Bend, people have been rushing to get vaccinated before the holiday.
“I am angered that I need to voluntarily subject him to more pain than should be necessary because I want to protect him from measles,” Klor wrote on Facebook, referring to her baby. “When you choose to vaccinate it’s about more than you, it’s a selfless decision that protects our most vulnerable population.”
https://www.jewishvoicesnj.org/articles/how-hotels-hosting-passover-travelers-are-dealing-with-measles-outbreak/
Four months later, more than 500 cases of the disease have spread throughout the United States in an outbreak linked to Orthodox Jews, especially unvaccinated Hasidim who were infected. And the disease is highly contagious: A single Orthodox traveler from Israel, who went to Michigan via New York City, is alleged to have spread the disease to 39 people after he was misdiagnosed.
That left Klor with a dilemma: Stay home, immunize her 8-month-old baby early in the recommended range for the immunization, or stay away from public areas for the length of her hotel stay.
It’s a calculation that was made by many of the tens of thousands of religious Jews who are filling hotels for Passover, dining and mingling in close quarters for eight days.
This year, program organizers in the Greater New York City area are trying to make sure that their clientele isn’t carrying the disease. None who spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency said they asked for vaccine records. But some said they had asked their guests to be vaccinated before they arrive at the hotel.
“We notified all the people that if they are not taking shots, they cannot come to our hotel,” said Rabbi Motty Katz, manager of the Katz Pesach program at the Long Island Hilton in Huntington, New York. “We’re going to be very strict on that… If you don’t take a shot, don’t go to a public place.”
Rabbi Yitzchok Neger, one of the managers of the Passover program at the Wyndham Golf Resort in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said he was “pretty confident we don’t have any virus or contagious situation where we are, with the guests we have.”
Most of his 1,300 guests are not Hasidim.
The measles outbreak has been linked to low vaccination rates. Jane Zucker, assistant commissioner of New York City’s Bureau of Immunization, says largely Hasidic Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, has one of the lowest rates of vaccine coverage among young children.
Agudath Israel of America, which represents haredi Jews, insists that the Orthodox neighborhoods with outbreaks have vaccination rates rivaling those of “many other municipalities,” but that their communities may be more susceptible for other reasons: Its members travel abroad frequently and have tightly related social networks, as well as many children at ages most susceptible to the disease.
Asking guests not to come if they are not immunized would be the best approach for hotels to take, said L’via Weisinger, a member of Emes, Hebrew for “truth,” a new group of Orthodox nurses that encourages vaccination. Had Weisinger theoretically been able to set policy at a hotel, she would have asked every guest to vaccinate and then checked their immunization records at the door.
“You don’t have a right as a citizen to go to a Pesach hotel,” she said. “It’s private, so if they say ‘Unless you’re vaccinated, you’re not welcome,’ there’s nothing wrong with that. Here’s your money back.”
In the end, Klor decided to give her baby an early MMR shot. In total, about 30 members of her extended family are spending Passover at the Wyndham Golf Resort. Had she not been able to immunize her kids, she said, Klor would have spent the holiday keeping them out of the hotel’s public spaces.
Even outside of the Passover hotel industry, the holiday leads to people crowding together on planes, in synagogue and in stores. A pre-Passover clothing drive in Baltimore required those attending to sign a legal waiver that they had been vaccinated. Klor said that in South Bend, people have been rushing to get vaccinated before the holiday.
“I am angered that I need to voluntarily subject him to more pain than should be necessary because I want to protect him from measles,” Klor wrote on Facebook, referring to her baby. “When you choose to vaccinate it’s about more than you, it’s a selfless decision that protects our most vulnerable population.”
https://www.jewishvoicesnj.org/articles/how-hotels-hosting-passover-travelers-are-dealing-with-measles-outbreak/
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