The city is zero for six in garnering full cooperation from the Hasidic community in rooting out mohels involved in neonatal herpes cases, but Mayor de Blasio says he still needs to evaluate whether a deal with the community is “working effectively or not.”
Under the February 2015 agreement on the controversial religious practice, where mohels suck blood from an incision during a circumcision, the city eliminated a parental consent form mandated by former Mayor Bloomberg.
In exchange, the community pledged to identify a mohel after an infant contracts herpes and to have the mohel tested to determine if there’s a strain match.
Last week, health officials said just 2 of 6 mohels had been identified and that — rather than being tested — they were simply advised not to continue with the practice, known as metzitzah b’peh.
Asked Monday whether the numbers aren’t a clear demonstration of lack of community cooperation, de Blasio wouldn’t say.
“We’ve made it very clear what we expect from the community,” he said at an unrelated press conference in The Bronx. “We’re evaluating the situation, when we get through with that evaluation we’ll have an update.”
He put the timeline of the review as “a matter of weeks.”