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Comment by hunterb123 | Hacker News Reader

Because the orthodox Jewish community is a constant source of outbreaks in the area. In 2019, there was a measles outbreak, in 2020, a number of COVID outbreaks, and now polio. No one is claiming that this community is the only to have a disease outbreak, but if there is an outbreak of a preventable disease in Rockland County, then it's most likely coming from Monsey.

I’m bringing up a specific community because it’s one that I lived in, know about, and is the subject of this post.

I don’t know anything about the problems faced by those communities you named.

Oh, certain people, like those of us who are sick of the repeated behavior of our co-religionists from this exact same community? The minute I read this polio outbreak was in Rockland county, my heart sank. Everyone knew what that likely meant.

A frum friend of mine told me today that the rumor is an Israeli kid, vaccinated with the live polio vaccine, had just moved into the community and was the likely carrier, and will likely be blamed, completely unfairly — instead of the fact that Hasids in Monsey have a ghastly problem with under-vaccination and non-vaccination.

Yeah, there’s a very good reason that people bring up this same community every time there’s a preventable disease outbreak.

Because they're not comparable. 75% of the measles cases in 2019 (which was the worst measles year since 1992) were associated with the Orthodox communities in NY[1]. Oregon and Washington do have higher prevalence due somewhat lower vaccination rates in specific counties but they lack the same clustering and congregating that is found in the Orthodox communities.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6840e2.htm

You cherry picked a particularly bad year (and a far outlier) and ignored the years where Washington and Oregon had higher numbers than NY.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/186678/new-cases-of-meas...

I focused on the bad year for that specific reason, because it was BAD. WA and OR have some cases throughout the years, but they don't produce large outbreaks because the overall populations are still vaccinated enough for herd immunity to act as a barrier. Orthodox communities on the other hand don't have that advantage, and when there's an outbreak there, it creates outliers and outliers are what we're trying to avoid when it comes to pathogens.

You seem very matter of fact for a one year outlier that you tried to pass off as a trend.

What about the years where an Oregon community surpassed the Orthodox Jew community in question?

Seems like you just want to selectively take an unfortunate outlier from 3 years ago and persecute a community for it even though it's not the norm.

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