NYC NOW - Midday News: Boy Found Dead at Brooklyn Shelter, State Order Could Drop Some Water Fees, Mamma Mia! Announces Broadway Return and 2 Cases of Measles Confirmed in NYC

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

City medical examiners are trying to determine what killed a 4-year-old boy at a family homeless shelter in East Flatbush. Plus, a new order from New York State's housing agency could have big implications for tenants paying water bills in rent stabilized apartments. Also, Mamma Mia! returns to Broadway this summer, after a ten-year hiatus. And finally, state health officials say there are two confirmed cases of measles in New York City. This comes after an outbreak of measles in Texas, where there’s over 100 cases.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. Here's your midday news from Michael Hill. City medical examiners are trying to determine what killed a four-year-old boy at a family homeless shelter in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. Police said the boy had a medical episode around 8 yesterday morning at the shelter on Glenwood Road. He was rushed to the hospital. The nonprofit organization Wynn runs the shelter, it says it's cooperating with the investment. investigation. Police have not reported any arrest and have not said if they suspect any foul play. A new order from the state's housing agency could have big implications for tenants paying water bills in rent-stabilized departments.

WNIC's David Brand explains. The state's Office of Rent Administration ordered the owner of the Lefraq City apartment complex in Queens to stop charging water fees and reimburse a tenant who complained about the charges. The agency says the fees violate state rent stabilization laws. Housing attorneys say it could set a precedent for tenants in a million rent-stabilized apartments across the city. The Lefrak organization owns the 4600 unit complex. Last year, WNIC found the company was imposing the water fees on new tenants since at least 2019. Lefrak is suing the state to appeal the ruling. The company spokesperson says it's within its rights to levy the charges.

After a 10-year hiatus, the Abba-inspired musical Mamma Mia returns to Broadway this summer. The show is coming back to its original home at the Winter Garden Theater, starting August 2nd for a six-month run. Tickets go on sale next week. It launched in 2001 and had almost 6,000 performances. 53 mostly clever. Stay tuned for more after the break. State health officials say there are two confirmed cases of measles in New York City. It comes after an outbreak of measles in Texas where there's more than 100 cases.

Joining us now to talk more about measles and vaccines is New York State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald. Can we just start by explaining what measles is and how it spreads and how contagious it is? Yeah, measles is probably the most contagious disease among humans. It's a virus, of course. And when you think about measles, I think people think of it as being a childhood infection from long, long ago. and keep buying, measles was eliminated in the United States in the year 2000. I just think that's important. This disease was eliminated in the year 2000, a great public health victory, but that's just

not the case now. It's not just contagious, though. Kids do get sick with this. You know, it starts as a runny nose, cough, runny eyes. They get a rash in their mouth. And there's that rash that goes head to toe and really is a problem for people. One of the things about the Texas outbreak in particular, though, that I think is a lot. really relevant here is about one in five people are ending up in a hospital because they have

pneumonia. And one of the things about measles is it does get people sick, not just in the short term, but there's some consequences that can happen even later because one of the things about measles that's kind of unique is it causes immune amnesia. It means your immune system kind of just doesn't work like it used to for previous infections. So your immune system might reboot itself, but it might take several weeks, several months, or even a couple of years. And this is why people who have measles are more likely in the long run to get other illnesses. And this is just one of the reasons why measles is not a harmless childhood infection. It's a serious disease.

What is the best way to prevent it? So the best protection for measles has been, is and will be the measles, mumps, and rebella vaccine. It's not a new vaccine, been around a long time. You need two doses, once between 12 and 15. months of life and once between ages of four and six in life. You get those two doses, you have pretty much lifelong immunity. And that's really the best protection out there is of measles, mom's from the other vaccine. So the state health department has confirmed two cases of measles in New York City. How concerned are you about that? Yeah, so part of why I'm concerned

about that is we're no stranger in New York to measles outbreaks. We had a big outbreak in 2018, 2019. And why I'm concerned is when you look at the measles vaccination rates around New York, they vary quite a bit. I have some communities that the vaccination rates are rather robust, but I have a lot of communities that I'm worried about because the vaccination rates are quite low. And, you know, some of those communities are downstate. Some of those communities are in the north country. Some of those communities are upstate. But some of those communities, vaccination rates of like 55% you know for getting two different doses you know

and that concerns me when I see some of the communities so low and you know I think the the rate you most need to be concerned about is your personal rate you know if you're if you're not up to date you're at risk and you know it's very contagious yeah let's talk more about those vaccine rates like as the whole anti-vax movement has really started going mainstream have you seen any change in in the vaccination rates in New York Yeah, so it's tough. We've seen some minor improvements over the last 10 years or so, but like, just give me, I want to give you a reference point here. Like, we want to see over 90% of kids under two get that

first dose, but in New York, we're only at 81%. So that's a concern. And then we would love to see it again over 95% by the time kids go to kindergarten, but we're just around 90%. So we really are, we're making slow progress, but this is one of the things that, you know, I see. You know, I'm also a pediatrician. I'm not just a state health commissioner, and I know you can't tell of a radio, Sean, but I'm rather old pediatrician. And I've given measles mumps and rebella vaccine to literally tens of thousands of children over my career, never had a problem. And, you know, my kids have had the vaccine. I had the vaccine when I was a kid because they did even vaccinate way back when. But it really gets to that point about, you know, our vaccine.

vaccine rates in New York, we have some work to do here. And we're doing work in that space, but we have some work to do together in this space. What public health measures is the state planning in response to these cases? So, Sean, last week I sent out a provider advisory to all the local health departments, all the health care providers. When I sent a provider advisory, one, I'm making sure everyone knew about the national situation with measles, the local situation with measles. I wanted to make sure people remembered what measles looks like. Because not every doctors seen it in their career. I also want to remind them how to actually test for measles. In other words, what's the specimen you collect and how to get the results? The other things we did

is I did a public service announcement last week as well. It's on social media now. And it's a different direction for me, but one of the things I'm doing from time to time is speaking directly to the people of New York State. And much as I enjoy talking to you, Sean, sometimes I just need to speak directly to the people. And that's why I'm doing more public service announcements. Now, we do a lot of support throughout the year with local health departments and health care providers. We do a lot of education, but those are two new things I've done in the past week just to make sure we're ready to mitigate any threat we have in New York State. Now, measles cases are not unheard of.

There were 14 cases last year, and some years there aren't any at all. So are there any particular worries about this years in particular? When I'm most concerned about right now in the United States is how many we're seeing, the West Texas outbreak, by the way, it's really quite interesting. I was talking to the CDC, literally, Sean, before I got on the call with you, 146 cases in West Texas and more coming. There's an outbreak in New Mexico right now that might be subsiding. You've heard about a case in Pennsylvania. Part of what I'm saying is, you know, I want to be back in the time where measles was eliminated, but what we're seeing is more and more outbreaks in the United States. And what typically happens is someone travels,

comes back in the United States, brings measles back, and then you see other people who haven't had the vaccine get exposed and therefore get infected. And just to give you a little bit of context of how contagious this is, just say someone has measles and was in a room, and you walk in the room an hour and a half later, high risk you'll get measles because the virus just lingers in the air for that long, up to two hours that will linger in the air. This is just more contagious than other viruses we deal with.

Now, before we let you go, we wanted to ask, and you can read between the lines here, how is communication with the federal government going when it comes to public health strategies in response to measles? Yeah, so I really have a good relationship with the CDC, and we talk to them often. You know, you're not hearing from them as much right now. That's part of why I'm making myself much more available to the public so you can hear from me. And so we do get along with the FDA very well and CDC very well, and I talk. to USDA quite a bit and really all of health and human services. I think that what you're seeing with the change in administration, and I don't think this is terribly unusual as federal agencies

don't really get to speak right now. And this is something that concerns me a little bit. But that's part of why I'm making myself as available as possible to let you know what I know, because you're my responsibility in New York. I'm in charge of taking care of you, all 20 million of you. Well, that was New York State Health Commissioner, Dr. James McDonald. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a day, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcast.