Girls soccer faces early challenges (See

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Hochul Declares Public Emergency Disaster After Polio Virus Found In Nassau Wastewater

JANET BURNS

jburns@antonmediagroup.com

On Sept. 9, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that traces of the polio virus found in New York City and nearby counties’ wastewater amounts to a ‘public emergency disaster,’ and that the state will be boosting its efforts to combat the illness accordingly.

Both Hochul and Nassau officials also announced that evidence of the virus, which has been near-eradicated in the U.S. through vaccination, was most recently found in Nassau County, making it the fifth such area in New York State. A case of polio infection which may have resulted from a Hasidic community member’s non-U.S.approved polio vaccine was identified in Rockland County in July; traces of the virus were later found in New York City, Orange, and Sullivan counties’ wastewater.

“I don’t want to alarm anybody, there are no cases of polio that has been discovered here in this region or in Nassau County,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said during a press conference the same day. “Nobody should panic, there is no crisis right now, [and] there is no active case of polio in Nassau County.”

The state disaster emergency allows EMS workers, midwives and pharmacists to administer polio vaccines and allows doctors and nurses to put in orders to stock up on the vaccine and directs all polio vaccination records to the New York State Health Department for the sake of directing resources efficiently.

According to a release by State Senator Kevin Thomas, “In an effort to get ahead of further spread, an Executive Order

declaring a State Disaster Emergency has been issued directing local health departments to increase the availability of resources to protect New Yorkers against paralytic disease.” “On polio, we simply cannot roll the dice,” State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett said in a statement. “If you or your child are unvaccinated or not up to date with vaccinations, the risk of paralytic disease is real. I urge New Yorkers to not accept any risk at all.” As Gothamist/WNYC science editor Nsikan Akpan explained to NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe that weekend, “[The] inactivated polio vaccine, it protects 99 percent of people from symptoms and paralysis, death, you know, all those bad things. And so really just scaling up vaccination is the way to go ... I think if we see more symptomatic cases, if we see a bunch of people ending up with paralysis, then you might get to that point.” According to the New York State Department Electron micrograph of the of Health: Polio is a poliovirus. Poliovirus is a species dangerous, debilitating, of Enterovirus, a Genus in the and life-threatening family of Picornaviridae, and is disease. Spread from an RNA virus. person-to-person, (Credit: CDC/Dr. Fred Murphy, poliovirus enters the Sylvia Whitfield, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) body through the mouth, usually from hands contaminated with the stool of an infected individual. People can spread the virus even if they do not know they are sick, and asymptomatic spread is a high concern among health officials. According to CDC, 70 percent of people infected with polio experience no symptoms. About 25 percent experience mild or flu-like symptoms that may be mistaken for many other illnesses. About 1 in 100 individuals will develop severe disease, including permanent paralysis. Of those paralyzed, 2-10 percent die when their breathing muscles become immobilized. Based on evidence from earlier polio outbreaks, health officials estimate that for every one case of paralytic polio observed, there may be hundreds of other people infected.