An anti-vaccination rally publicized on social media drew a small crowd of protesters Thursday morning to the Palisades Center in West Nyack — just two days after Rockland County declared a state of emergency amid a measles outbreak.
Some from among the roughly 10 protesters who attended the rally adjacent to the carousel on the mall’s third floor said the county’s mandate banning unvaccinated children between the ages of 1 and 18 from public spaces went too far.
The mall is an example of a public place where unvaccinated children are banned. Other places include schools, restaurants, stores and places of worship, although county officials said the emergency declaration is not enforceable but rather a tool to highlight the serious nature of the outbreak and convince people to vaccinate.
The emergency order forbids schools from allowing unvaccinated students with religious exemptions to attend. This has resulted in a range of 11 to 50 children missing classes in each of Rockland’s public school districts, according to BOCES communications director Scott Salotto.
In response to Thursday’s protest, Day said in statement that there had been a great deal of support from within the community and across the country regarding the state of emergency.
But another protester at Thursday morning’s rally, Tamara Silberman of Westchester, called the vaccination order a civil rights issue, noting the order affects young people who want to attend synagogue, among other places.
Day announced the emergency declaration Tuesday afternoon and it went into effect at midnight. He said during Tuesday’s press conference that he chose to declare the emergency about six months after the outbreak began because county health inspectors had started seeing pockets of resistance as the number of measles cases continue to grow.
