Whooping cough cases are skyrocketing in New York City, according to shocking new data that emerges as many unvaccinated migrants continue to pour into the Big Apple.
So far this year the city has seen a staggering 169% surge in the potentially fatal illness compared to the same period in 2023 — and almost 500% more cases than there were at this point in 2019, the Center of Disease Control and Protection found.
Across the state, there have been over 300% more cases of the highly contagious respiratory illness this year compared to last, and 214% more compared to the same period in 2019, the data show.
“If you have a community where there happens to be a low vaccination rate, you could have a whooping cough outbreak and that could drive the trend,” said Bill Hammond, a senior fellow for health policy the Empire Center for Public Policy.
Nationwide, cases of whooping cough increased 282% so far this year compared to last.
“It should be a priority for children of all communities and immigration statuses to be vaccinated in order to prevent this outbreak from getting worse,” Hammond added of the illness, caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis, and spread by infected individuals coughing or sneezing while in close contact with others. It can be deadly for infants and young kids, the elderly or those with compromised immune systems.
Since mid-2022, more than 200,000 migrants have passed through New York City, and 63,900 are currently residing in city-run shelters, Mayor Eric Adams said last month.
The often cramped and poorly-ventilated shelters create the perfect conditions for whooping cough to spread, experts told The Post.
“Any communal environments where there are lots of people, where vaccination might not be optimized, is at risk” of whooping cough outbreaks, said Dr. Matt Harris, a Northwell health physician who specializes in pediatric emergency medicine.
There were outbreaks of the illness this summer at upstate kids’ camps and US Army barracks, for example, because “it’s so highly contagious and they’re all living on top of each other,” Harris said.
Similar conditions commonly exist inside the city’s migrant shelters — and “we also don’t know the vaccination status” among the migrants, Harris noted.
Especially in close quarters, “you can still get pertussis if you’re vaccinated,” he noted.
New York City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan warned last year that half of the migrants entering the Big Apple had not been vaccinated against the contagious and potentially deadly poliovirus, and that many were coming from or passing through countries with high rates of infectious tuberculosis.
“Vaccination rates for certain diseases are low in some of the most common countries of origin, with rates hovering around 50% for polio as an example,” Vasan wrote in a 2023 letter to physicians and health care providers.
A 2017 study by researchers from Italy’s Department of Public Health and the World Health Organization found that migrants’ native countries often have low immunization rates, and they often refuse or don’t have access to vaccines once they arrive in a new country.
The city’s Health Department doesn’t track how many migrants coming into the city are unvaccinated, a DOH spokesperson said.
“The best way to avoid pertussis is to follow appropriate vaccination guideline,” said a state Department of Health spokesperson.
