MONTICELLO, NY — All summer campers in Sullivan County must show they are vaccinated against three highly contagious diseases, according to a new public health order. 

But the adults who work at those camps do not have to submit proof.

New York already requires all schoolchildren to have these and other vaccinations. What’s new is a requirement that summer camps obtain proof in the form of immunization records from their campers. 

Including camp counselors and other adult staff in the order would have made a bigger difference to public health. The NYS Department of Health urges camps to require vaccinations for their employees, specifically, measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR); tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap); and varicella. The state also recommends the hepatitis B vaccine for lifeguards, health care workers, and others who might come into close contact with others.

Haley Motola, the county’s epidemiologist, said the county is at risk of a measles or polio outbreak. Polio has been found in the county’s wastewater, she said, and measles is on the rise in the region. Campers must also be vaccinated for pertussis, also known as whooping cough. 

But the new order does not include employees. If it did, opening camps this summer would be difficult if not impossible, operators told the legislature.

“The most difficult part of the requirements for immunization would be in relation to the staff,” Joel Rosenfeld, director of Camp Rayim in Parksville, told legislators during a public hearing on March 20. He said that even though he was vaccinated as a child, he doesn’t have his records.

The full board of the county legislature approved the amended order on March 21.

Time is short

The order covered both campers and staff members when it was first proposed during the Health and Human Services Committee meeting on March 14. Legislators Terry Blosser-Bernardo (District 9-R), Amanda Ward (District 8-R), Matt McPhillips (District 1-D), and Brian McPhillips (District 3-D) voted to table the order. The committee then scheduled a March 20 public hearing to address the topic.

The hearing was packed. Most attendees were members of the growing Orthodox Jewish community that owns and operates many summer camps in the county. 

Rosenfeld accused the legislature of unfairly targeting his community.

“I don’t think I see a single summer camp that’s not an Orthodox Jewish summer camp,” said Rosenfeld. “So in Sullivan County when you talk about summer camps, you’re talking about Orthodox Jews. Maybe there is a perception out there that Orthodox Jews bring diseases. That’s what this piece looks like. That’s what it smells like.”

There are a number of summer camps in Sullivan County that are not Orthodox Jewish camps. And at least one—the Ten Mile River Boy Scout Camp—also objected to the staff requirement. 

“We have a couple of concerns,” said Christopher Guarniere, senior non-profit executive leader at Greater New York Councils, Boy Scouts of America, which operates Ten Mile River in the Town of Tusten. “One is the timing of the order. A lot of our youth and adults have already gone and done their medical forms from the summer, so they’re already prepared for the year.” 

If the order had been issued in October or November, Guarniere said, it would have been a lot easier to meet its requirements. “So our older staff may not be able to easily provide the information that’s being sought in this order,” he said.

David Weiss is involved with multiple camps in the county. “If adults have to be vaccinated, it’s impossible to open up camp,” he said. “So we really have to think about this declaration.” 

‘There are real threats out there’

After getting public feedback, legislators offered amended versions of the order.

A version offered by legislator Cat Scott (District 5-D) would have had the county health department administer vaccines to staff members who needed them. It also removed language that would have suspended or revoked the permits of camps not in compliance and reduced the proposed fine from $3,000 to $2,000,

Scott’s amended order did not receive a second or a vote.

Blosser-Bernardo offered her own version that excluded staff from the vaccine order.

Scott objected. “I think that we’re opening ourselves up to liability should there be an outbreak,” she said, pointing to the state’s recommendations. 

Ward supported Blosser-Bernardo’s version. “I care about the safety and well-being of every single person in this community,” she told Scott. “So I don’t want that minimized or diminished because we have a difference of opinion in our approach.”

Scott said she was merely taking the recommendation from the public health department and the epidemiologist.

Residents asked if the threat of an outbreak was real.

John Liddle, the county’s Department of Health and Human Services commissioner, said yes.

“I would defer to the public health director on some expertise of the most current issues,” he said, “but what I would say is, number one, you don’t have to be a public health expert to see what’s in the news right now, that there are outbreaks of measles. There have been outbreaks of polio. We have seen polio in our wastewater that’s been reported. So there are real threats out there that we need to protect ourselves from. So those are real things. Those things are happening.”

Liddle told the River Reporter that the county will propose its next public health order earlier, and ideally make it a local law so that it did not have to be debated every year.

Read the full public health order here.