With new detection, officials warn of spring and summer transmission risks:
Health officials in New York have once again detected poliovirus in wastewater from Rockland County, where a case of paralytic polio occurred last summer.
Wastewater samples from Rockland and several nearby counties were positive for poliovirus for months after the initial case was reported in July, suggesting widespread circulation of the virus in the region.
So far this year, officials have only detected poliovirus in one sample, which was collected from Rockland in February. Two samples from the county taken during March were negative. Before the detection in February, the last positive sample from the region was found in mid-December in Orange County, just north of Rockland. The last positive detection in Rockland was in October.
While the data doesn't suggest that poliovirus is again circulating widely in the region, health officials are wary that the virus could easily restart. Rockland has one of the lower vaccination rates in the state; as of August, only 60.34 percent of 2-year-olds in the county were up to date on their polio vaccinations. Some areas of the county have rates in the 50s.
Officials are concerned about the potential for international spread of polio to Rockland's sizable Jewish community during upcoming holiday travel.
[...] Officials continue pushing for vaccination in parts of the county where anti-vaccine sentiments are high. They're offering free polio boosters at walk-in clinics, working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to audit vaccination coverage at day cares and schools, and trying to improve vaccination messaging.
"It is our obligation to protect all our residents from these debilitating and potentially fatal diseases. The law requiring childhood vaccinations has been in place for many years for this very reason," County Executive Ed Day said. "I urge our residents to act now and protect yourselves, your family, and your community."
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @05:25PM (23 children)
This is the natural consequence of letting in millions of 3rd-world people, bringing in their 3rd-world diseases.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @05:34PM (2 children)
It's one of the too many strong reasons to do better border control- to thoroughly test immigrants for diseases that we (USA, or whoever) thought we had wiped out, and have little to no defense against. Just like the Maya, Inca, Aztec, etc., when the Spanish came in droves with their diseases.
(Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Wednesday March 29, @05:49PM (1 child)
There's plenty of defences:
1) 2 types of vaccine - weakened virus, given by mouth, and inactivated virus, by injection.
2) Most transmission is by the fecal-oral route, so good public health and sanitation, including hand hygiene, and good hygiene around meal preparation will stop most transmission.
Of course, if you can't be bothered to use the defences, more infections can be expected.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @09:28PM
I recently worked in a food factory. Everything USDA organic- NO preservatives. So you'd think cleanliness was tantamount to everything. For the most part things were kept pretty clean. Most of the workers were "Mexican" (could have been from anywhere south of US-Mexico border). One bathroom was for offices and production workers were not supposed to use it. Some colleagues' offices were very near said bathroom, and they'd take note of production workers using office staff's bathroom. It was very easy to tell that most of them did NOT wash their hands. Sometimes did not even flush. It occasionally got even worse but no need for details here.
TBF, they were supposed to wash / scrub before re-entering production area, but I seriously doubt they did- I never saw any of them washing up. They did sometimes wear gloves, especially if they were in any kind of contact with empty food containers or batching / mixing / filling operations. Empty food containers were inverted and hit with strong steam before being filled.
Not all Hispanics were unsanitary, and not all gringos were sanitary, but the majorities were as above.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Wednesday March 29, @05:47PM (12 children)
No, it's the natural consequence of anti-vaxxers and their paranoid delusions ruining the last 60+ years of progress for the rest of us,
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @07:47PM
Don't forget the CIA: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60900-4/fulltext [thelancet.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna [theguardian.com]
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/06/1034631928/the-cias-hunt-for-bin-laden-has-had-lasting-repercussions-for-ngos-in-pakistan [npr.org]
Can someone remind me of the good things the CIA does? As in the CIA makes things better for the average US citizen more than it makes things worse?
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @08:01PM (8 children)
Polio was eradicated from the Americas by 1992. You don't need vaccines against diseases that no longer exist in a population.
Unfortunately, because of the open borders policy and the lack of proper testing of incoming immigrants, it was brought back into this country.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by turgid on Wednesday March 29, @08:19PM (7 children)
Unfortunately, because of human greed, vaccination was limited by geography.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @09:30PM (6 children)
Why TF should I, as a lifelong US citizen, get a vaccine for a disease that was wiped out in the USA? Oh, there are NO possible side-effects from the vaccine? Well alright alright alright then.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mykl on Wednesday March 29, @10:00PM (5 children)
So that you can travel overseas without the fear of contracting it and bringing it back to your family?
Or so that your buddy, who has been told to head overseas to check on his company's supplier systems for compliance, doesn't bring it back?
More to the point, the US needs to continue to fund vaccinations for 3rd World countries. This is to ensure that said 3rd World Country remains friendly with the US rather than the next country to offer vaccinations to it (e.g. China). If the US turns its back on the world, China and Russia are only too happy to step in and make friends with everyone else. What does that do for US influence?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @10:22PM (4 children)
I'm sure you meant well, but this "thinking" is the absolute core of so many of today's problems. You took what I wrote and the scenario of it, changed it up, then refuted your construction as if that's what I wrote.
For anyone traveling overseas, it's a very different scenario, right? I didn't address US citizens' travel at all.
I'm generally talking about better border control and security. Do you know what you have to do to bring a pet into the US, from anywhere?
I generally like and agree with what you said about the US helping other countries. I've always felt strongly about it, but we still need good efficient disease testing. We can't force other countries to eradicate diseases like TB, typhoid, plague, etc. But we need to do our best to keep ourselves disease-free.
I would support some kind of treaty with other countries who have determined to, and succeeded in eradicating those diseases. Said agreements would need to include that all agreement countries would test people coming into their countries (returning citizens, visitors, or immigrants). The purpose of the agreements would be to minimize unnecessary testing.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @10:48PM
Don't forget to thank Brandon, and his 'surge the border' speech, for encouraging millions to swarm the border. There are literally dozens of diseases making appearances in the US as a result of unscreened illegal alien invaders.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday March 29, @10:51PM (2 children)
I agree. I'm old and I've never had pertussis, polio, measles, chicken pox, diphtheria, rubella or smallpox.
Why is that? Because I received vaccinations (with the exception of smallpox) for them, as did most of the folks in my generation (early GenX).
Bring me a hot illegal immigrant with polio and I'll happily buy frisbees [thoughtcatalog.com] with her.
And that goes for all the other infectious diseases for which I've been vaccinated. And since I'm vaccinated for those diseases, I don't have to worry about getting such a disease myself. What's bad with that?
I'd say that regardless of border security since tens of millions of people [trade.gov] [PDF] come to the US every year completely legally, getting vaccinated against such diseases makes a lot of sense even if you don't leave the US.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30, @09:15AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday March 30, @12:19PM
According to the CDC [cdc.gov]:
I don't see bludgeoning the flaps of an illegal immigrant on the list, so I think I'm okay. ;)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Insightful) by krishnoid on Thursday March 30, @01:26AM (1 child)
Let's not discount the contributions from 60+ years of progress in multiple scientific fields (including the Internet [nwbe.org]):
The fact that wastewater surveillance can detect the presence of the virus before cases start showing up in hospitals, and that the government's public health notification system publishes rather than hides this information, is really valuable forward intelligence. The, er, "natural consequences" of viral RNA staying intact all the way from the body all the way to waste treatment is Nature throwing us a bone, though.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday March 30, @05:07AM
Even then, stupidity gets in the way. My local sewage treatment authority acted like wastewater surveillance was something bizarre that I'd made up.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by pTamok on Wednesday March 29, @05:52PM (3 children)
I guess you don't even know what the definition of 'Third World [wikipedia.org]' is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30, @12:03AM
What in their post would make you say that?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday March 30, @03:26PM (1 child)
In 2023, its "new york"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30, @06:21PM
More properly, Orange and Rockland Counties [ny.gov]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday March 29, @06:31PM
Slowing the spread of polio is not what you intended with your remark.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday March 29, @07:11PM
It's more a natural consequence of bozos thinking they know biology better than people who studied it because they listen to some snake oil peddlers on the internet.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @07:11PM
It's almost as if there's no attempt to find a solution... Chat robots gotta chat.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday March 29, @07:50PM (9 children)
Things like this are the direct fallout from lies about the Covid "vaccine" (it's not). You don't need a mask (we need ours first). Oh wait, no, you absolutely DO need a mask (we have ours now). The "vaccine" will stop the spread of Covid. The unvaccinated are spreading Covid.
When your government is caught in one lie after another, people start to mistrust the government. Even when they are telling the truth, as in the need for people to be vaccinated with actual vaccines against diseases against which they are effective.
(Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Wednesday March 29, @09:40PM (3 children)
The Covid vaccines (plural) are vaccines. They induce immune responses that mean the immune system can respond faster to infection by SARS-CoV-2 viruses. Like all vaccines, they are not 100% effective, but as the recent roll-out of malaria vaccines shows, a vaccine does not need to be 100% effective in order to have a positive public health benefit.
As for masks: surgical masks are lousy at preventing infection of the wearer by infectious aerosols. They exist to reduce the risk of the surgeon infecting the patient when the patient is vulnerable (skin open during surgery). So you are most interested in other people wearing masks, because they act to reduce the infectious aerosols produced by other people (surgeon infecting patient). If you want to reduce your own risk of infection, you need an N95 mask at minimum, worn properly (which is hard). This has been known since day one, when medical staff dealing with infected patients needed N95 masks, of which there was a shortage. Wearing a surgical mask saves others. Do the right thing.
If you are not vaccinated, and have symptomatic Covid infection, the average length of time you are infectious (can spread disease to others) is lengthened compared to vaccinated people - because vaccinated people have had their immune system primed to deal with the virus. Without the vaccination there is a latency period during which (hopefully successfully) your immune system is building up the necessary tools to deal with the infection. So non-vaccinated people are disproportionately infectious for longer, and therefore have more opportunity to spread the disease.
As for the government not lying: I too am in favour of motherhood and apple pie. Governments know it is a bad idea. Duh! And Covid vaccines are effective, just not 100%, BUT way better than zero.
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday March 30, @01:13AM
What if you wear it backwards?
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Thursday March 30, @02:19PM (1 child)
Before Covid, vaccines contained weakened or inactive parts of a particular organism (antigen) that triggers an immune response within the body. Covid vaccines contain the blueprint for producing antigens rather than the antigen itself. This required a change to what qualifies as a vaccine.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday March 31, @09:20AM
Before Covid, vaccines contained weakened or inactive parts of a particular organism (antigen) that triggers an immune response within the body. Covid vaccines contain the blueprint for producing antigens rather than the antigen itself. This required a change to what qualifies as a vaccine.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 29, @10:53PM (2 children)
Flamebait, because you are trying to make this issue a political issue, and directly citing the whole covid fiasco, which was largely political.
Polio didn't just crop up in the past year or two, as a result of the pandemic. Whatever is happening in Rockland has been happening for decades. And, FYI, Rockland County is a deep blue county, NOT red, not Republican, not Trump voters, not MAGA country. https://bestneighborhood.org/conservative-vs-liberal-map-rockland-county-ny/ [bestneighborhood.org]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29, @11:15PM
(Score: 3, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Thursday March 30, @03:49PM
Correct. The problem with Rockland County isn't political, it's the religious views of many Orthodox Jewish residents with respect towards vaccination in general.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday March 30, @05:03AM
Effectiveness, not as good as at first, but proven in gold standard experiment: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577 [nejm.org]
(Score: 1, Redundant) by VLM on Thursday March 30, @03:28PM
I'll call it now, you know this polio thing is going to be spun as "great news, we have a new and improved vaccine for polio"
This is our government; it doesn't work for us; they can't possibly be doing something that's good for us, tried and tested, actually works. They'd never do that.