NY DOH Fails to Correct Misleading Vaccination Rates

By Yehudit Garmaise

     On June 7, Gov. Andrew Cuomo put up a misleading chart that listed Boro Park, Monsey, Monroe, Far Rockaway, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights, as among the 25 statewide ZIP codes with the lowest vaccination rates: a serious charge that could open up the communities to anti-Semitic attitudes and accusations.

       The governor’s chart was misleading because, although he claimed that he was aiming to vaccinate 70% of the state’s adult population, a benchmark the state reached yesterday, the state’s Department of Health (DOH), for some reason, misrepresented the number of vaccinated adults, by including in its calculations, all New Yorkers, 12 and up, who are eligible for vaccination.

     Because the high birth rates of Chassidic communities create larger-than-usual teenage populations in heimish ZIP codes, the state is depicting many Orthodox Jewish communities as having lower-than-average vaccination rates, when in fact, they merely have higher-than-average populations under the age of 18, which were much more recently made eligible for vaccination and perhaps less likely to get seek out vaccination because they were not considered to be much at risk during the pandemic.

   In fact, Boro Park’s 18 and under population comprises 60% of the ZIP code, compared with the 20% average of 18 and under populations in other neighborhoods. The state falsely reported Boro Park’s adult vaccination rate at 33.8%, whereas, the city, which measures adult vaccination rates alone, lists Boro Park’s vaccination rate at 50%: a rate that mirrors the 52% rate of adult whites who were vaccinated and exceeded the 47% rate of Latino adults the 35% of African American adults of got their shots.

   On June 9, when BoroPark24 pointed out the skewed data of the state, which was causing government officials and non-heimish reporters to wonder why so many frum ZIP codes were among the states bottom 25 for vaccination, Mitch Katz, MD, the CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, who grew up in Brooklyn, said he understood the inclusion of the 18 and under populations in the state’s adult data particularly misrepresented the adult rates of vaccination in Chassidic communities. 

     “I agree measuring vaccination as a percentage of the population is deceptive in any part of the city where the number of children is much larger, and we know that is true of the Chassidic population,” said Dr. Katz. “I think the way the city reports its data is better and more representative of what’s going on in the Orthodox Chassidic community.

        “We can certainly give that feedback back to the state that focusing on the group that are adults and separately looking at the group of younger people, for whom there was just recent approval makes sense to me.”

    On June 14, however, Gov. Cuomo put up the exact same chart that he did the first time: once again claiming low rates of vaccination in heimish communities.

    On June 15, when BoroPark24 asked Dr. Katz at Mayor de Blasio’s press conference whether he had reached out to Gov. Cuomo or the state’s DOH and what the response had been, Dr. Katz, appeared caught unaware, as if he had perhaps forgotten to make the call.

   However, more than 24 hours and two e-mails to the mayor’s press office later, BoroPark24 still hasn’t heard back from Dr. Katz.

    Meanwhile, reporters continue to ask questions daily about “what is being done to vaccinate Orthodox Jewish communities?” and write articles that accuse frum Jews of being more vaccine-hesitant than other New Yorkers.

Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.