Opera lovers who caught a matinee of La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera House last month later received emails from the Met Opera letting them know that one of their fellow attendees had measles, the opera house has confirmed.
The Met Opera sent a longer, more detailed email to those seated in the person’s immediate vicinity for the April 25 performance, in accordance with guidance from the city health department, said Jen Luzzo, a spokesperson for the Met Opera. The letter advised recipients to get vaccinated against measles if they weren’t already and to keep an eye out for potential symptoms, including a fever and rash.
“If you think you or your relatives have measles, stay home and call your healthcare provider or local health department right away,” read the notice, which the Met Opera shared with Gothamist. A shorter notice emphasizing the importance of vaccination, which was also shared with Gothamist, went out to the other attendees.
It typically takes 11 to 12 days for symptoms to potentially appear after exposure to the measles, and the virus can be contagious up to four days before a rash shows up, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The person who went to the opera with the measles also ate at two Manhattan restaurants and was treated at health care facilities in the borough. City officials said the person is an unvaccinated adult, who tested positive for the virus after international travel.
The health department opted not to issue a broad public alert disclosing the dates, times and locations of these potential measles exposures, instead asking each individual business to communicate with those who might have been affected. City health officials said they are taking this approach because of the low overall risk to the general public due to high vaccination rates and the businesses’ ability to notify employees and patrons.
“There continues to be no reports of secondary cases or local transmission despite the infected person visiting multiple locations,” Chantal Gomez, a spokesperson for the city health department, said Thursday.
The agency confirmed earlier this week that one of the restaurants the person with measles patronized was Norma, an Italian eatery in Hell’s Kitchen — but only after Norma posted about the potential exposure on its Instagram story and caught the attention of news outlets.
Gomez said the Met Opera was able to email attendees who had purchased tickets from the venue, while Norma made a more general Instagram post because it didn’t have diners’ contact information.
Gomez said the city determines whether to issue a broader, citywide alert about a disease exposure depending on factors such as how the disease spreads, immunity levels and businesses’ ability to notify those affected.
Nina Schwalbe, who’s running for office in New York City’s 12th Congressional District on the Upper West Side, posted about the measles incident at the Met Opera on her Instagram story, after speaking with a woman in the neighborhood who said she’d received an email from the opera house about being exposed to the virus.
Schwalbe has had a long career in public health, including as a former professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She said best practices for alerting people who have been exposed to a virus can vary depending on the circumstances. If it’s possible to directly contact everyone who was exposed, it might make more sense to do that rather than putting out a broad public alert, she said.
“There is a balance between panic and responsible public health,” Schwalbe said. “That's where it really depends on the details of the case.”
Five cases of the measles have been confirmed in the city so far this year and city health officials said all were linked to international travel, not local transmission. Statewide, there have been 10 measles cases this year, including one reported in an unvaccinated child under five in Nassau County earlier this week.
