Measles, once on the verge of being eradicated, is making a comeback
New York county declares a measles emergency, banning unvaccinated minors from public places.
Fifteen states have now officially reported cases of measles to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the outbreak is the second highest in number since 2014.
The CDC’s latest report also added nearly 50 cases, bringing the total to 314 as of March 21.
Kentucky, Georgia, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington have now all reported cases in the outbreak.The outbreak has been linked to travelers who brought the measles back from other countries facing outbreaks such as Ukraine and Israel. There were 372 cases reported in 2018 according to the CDC. So far, the current outbreak is the second-highest since 2014.
The CDC says the majority of people with measles were unvaccinated and the issue could continue as travelers from overseas bring the disease back to the United States.
The situation is so concerning for public health officials in New York, they are officially banning unvaccinated minors from public spaces.
Rockland County officials announced that starting at 12 a.m. on Wednesday, anyone under 18 who has not yet been vaccinated will be barred from public places until they receive the MMR vaccine or until the emergency declaration expires in 30 days. Public places are being defined by county officials as “any place where people get together for civic or social reasons,” such as shopping centers, schools and restaurants. Outdoor areas, such as playgrounds, are not included, according to county officials.
Law enforcement will not be asking people for vaccination records, but if parents are found to be in violation, their cases will be forwarded to the district attorney, Rockland County Executive Ed Day told reporters in a news conference Tuesday. Violations will be charged as misdemeanors punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.
“We must do everything in our power to end this outbreak,” Day said.
There have been massive outbreaks of the disease in the Philippines and Ukraine, more than 80,000 cases in the past year in Europe. Given the ease of travel and the anti-vaccination movement, public health officials have given up the goal of eradicating the disease. Now, it is anticipated there will be regular, small outbreaks in this country.
The tragedy is it doesn’t have to be that way.
Measles could be eradicated. Future generations of children could be spared both measles infections and eventually measles vaccination, after the viruses were certified as gone.
The measles vaccine is effective enough to do the job, experts believe. The measles component of the MMR vaccine — it also protects against mumps and rubella — prevents infection in 97 out of every 100 kids who get the recommended two doses. If enough children were vaccinated with MMR around the globe, measles would follow smallpox into the history books.
In conclusion, there will be more measles emergencies declared, and more rules related to vaccination as well.
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Comments
Unvaccinated, marginally vaccinated, and vaccinated carriers.
When you bring people or allow illegals from shit holes into America you are also bringing disease and the worst elements of their culture.
Based on the sheep-like trust so many have for the government, the media, and our corporate rulers, maybe the USA needs more people who disregard rules, policies, codes, and statutes?
“My Country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of Liberty”?
Not anymore.
Does this apply to undocumented unvaccinated aliens or just law-abiding citizens?
Parents from a California Elementary school recently received a flyer telling them their kids were exposed to Hanson’s Disease, aka Leprosy.
Relax, it’s not “highly” contagious or “easily” transmitted, just ask Ben Hur’s mom. Actually kind of quaint how CA is now reliving the good old days.
Maybe with enough ignorance we can bring back polio and small pox.
Apparently there have been a very few cases of Polio popping up, presumably among unvaccinated aliens, but perhaps citizens unvaccinated children.
There is always the possibility of smallpox resurrecting too.
Wild polio was already waning when the vaccine was introduced. Most infections since that time have been caused by the vaccine.
it’s kind of hard to get a disease from a vaccine that doesn’t use a live virus…
but don’t let facts get in the way of your beliefs. you just go on being you.
Or, how a first world culture reduces itself to a Medieval one.
Measles aren’t generally fatal with today’s medicine. And we are talking about hundreds of cases.
There are already that many with Hepatitis in SF, LA and “dying” Seattle, and Typhus in LA. Measles isn’t a medieval disease caused by lack of sanitation. Typhus and Hepatitis are. But they are more worried about a few who are unvaccinated (wait, if the vaccine is effective, why are you worried?) rather than doing something about the 3rd world conditions and diseases.
Also needles – How many diseases are only not being spread because the needles end up on the sidewalk.
Embrace the power of “and”. There is nothing which requires only addressing one or the other. Measles is rarely fatal, but it can lead to scarring which may last a lifetime if Medicare for All doesn’t cover cosmetic correction. 😉
“Rarely fatal” except in young infants who are too young to be vaccinated (<18 months). Then there is that whole disabling brain damage encephalitis secondary infection. I had a classmate rendered deaf from the measles.
“The CDC says the majority of people with measles were unvaccinated and the issue could continue as travelers from overseas bring the disease back to the United States.”
Of course, but what we need to know is what percentage of the cases are from vaccinated. What is the current efficacy of the vaccine? Does it need a booster? Do we need a post-vax monitoring protocol? Etc.
Sometimes, we don’t always detect viral mutations. They don’t just jump out at you; it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.
CDC should maybe be making this a priority over getting better exercise equipment for their offices.
The CDC is no more dedicated to the citizen than is Amtrak.
Vaccines aren’t effective on some people so their only chance is if enough people are vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease. Now I understand how and why some people may not wish to be drafted into the effort to save the lives of others, but we all have to pay taxes of some sort.
I’ll give you the matter of public health, but it’s *not* comparable to taxes.
I mean, you’re forcing someone to *inject things into their bodies*.
Not the same as taxes. Personally, the vaccines make me (and my kids) safer, so they (and I) got/get them. But forcing someone to inject substances? Yeah, not something I’m super happy about.
So beyond Unconstitutional, it boggles the mind.
Are we going to start testing people for antibodies now? How will you get in the shopping mall if your childhood polio jab has worn off? Will there be a grace period before you get fined for not getting your booster shot?
This makes Obamacare look like child’s play.
If people are consistent in their values (big if, I know), then the pro-choice and the pro-life people have to oppose involuntary vaccination. It’s not pro-choice to have the government sticking stuff in our bodies, and it’s not pro-life to have vaccines made from aborted fetuses.
If people value the scientific method and truth, then we should also oppose mandatory vaccination. We have demonstrated that injecting an attenuated virus into the blood does not have the identical effect as being exposed to the same virus in nature (vaccines wear off, natural immunity doesn’t). We have also never tested in combination every component of vaccines. There have never been double-blind, placebo studies of vaccination.
If you are worried about getting measles, then get the shot. You don’t have the right to make me get it. You don’t have a right to make my children get any shot either (and you can’t take them from my custody if I don’t take them to the ER for a fever).
This is going to be the extremely tiny version. Quarantine laws in the American colonies began in 1663. (I had reason to look it up a couple of days ago.) Not vaccinating may be legal, but quarantines are also legal. I thought it was worth pointing out.
Yes, and it makes sense to quarantine someone with a disease. Do we really want to quarantine people without a disease? Are you really prepared to take away the civil liberties of your neighbors because of fear of a disease? You’d think everyone who get measles also dies from measles, the way we’re carrying on.
As you noted, almost all testing done on vaccines, is done with dosages of a single vaccine having usually less than four viral strains. On the other hand, we are now administering bundled vaccines which introduce from 14 to 35 different viral agents at the same time. And, no study has been done on this practice.
There is a clear statistical correlation between the rate of administration of increased dosages of vaccine in children younger than 3 yoa and the increase in the rate of those same children. It is far past time to actively investigate why this correlation exists. While measles and mumps are usually a transient problem, autistic traits are forever.
As noted, the purpose of vaccination is to protect the individual who is vaccinated from contracting a specific disease. So, the unvaccinated should have no effect on the vaccinated. If the vaccines actually work, that is. And, there are negative side effects to all vaccines. Whether the side effects are worth the potential protection should be left up to the individual to decide.
“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
GTL, you speak about various “rights” and the Constitution.
In the US Constitution, Jefferson, after Locke, cites “inalienable rights” to be embodied in it as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (Originally life, liberty and property)
Locke’s central thesis is that nature’s instability threatens mankind’s survival. Only through cooperation can man survive, thus the genesis of government, the social contract. In a state of anarchy, even the Rousseauian type you seem to envisage, we fall not only to primeval nature, but to man’s nature. The foundation of the social contract is survival, thus life as the first element in the list. In being part of a society, Locke continues, one gives up certain powers, specifically the right to protect one’s self, to the laws of the society, one’s government, in the present case, the laws of the United States of America governed by the Constitution.
This is interesting. This is happening NOW. How is it that “travelers” from countries with a measles outbreak are bringing the virus with them? Do they mean unvaccinated travelers? Who would they be?
And get this, not one single word or mention of the fact that illegals from Africa, the middle east and central America, places where the majority of people are not vaccinated, might be implicated.
I’m with Whitewall on this.
GTL, what’s your deal? You want us to stop vaccinating entirely and let future generations slug it out on a survival of the fittest loop? Are you a libertarian?
And, technically speaking, if you want your kids to attend a school where my kids are, your kids damn well better be vaccinated. You, of course, may choose to home school. In which case, don’t get them vaccinated.
Tell you one thing. Smallpox is an ugly disease.
I appreciate your attempt to take the “scientific method and truth” high ground. Don’t tell Jenner and Pasteur. I guess they would be dopes in your book?
You should try reading about Pasteur and his method. Not a lot of science there.
I’m all for vaccines that actually work. Do you know how much of our taxes are paid every year to those with vaccine injuries? But why do some people have to get injured by vaccinations, so the rest of the population can pretend to be healthier?
And, yes, I did homeschool. I taught science and philosophy. Bet your public schools don’t have time to cover such topics for all the brainwashing.
GTL: I’m not getting what your suggested alternative to mass vaccination is. I agree that immunity wears off over time. I also don’t like the idea of people telling me what to do.
People died from a lot of these diseases we vaccinate against. Admittedly, measles is a minor disease, compared with others. Is your position that we do away with vaccines?
Sidebar: I don’t have much use for public schools. But I would pretty much say philosophy, as an active discipline, is dead, in and out of public schools.
America’s declared emergency at the southern “border” is all about a medical emergency, due to the plethora of third world diseases flooding into our great country. obama literally flew illegals to every state in the union, including Hawaii!! We’re talking virtually no medical screening, especially now with the border overwhelmed and having to turn tens of thousands of illegal aliens loose. TB, measles, polio, “mystery viruses” causing paralysis of children, mumps, flu, and even flesh-eating bacteria infections, and the list goes on. Measles had been eradicated in America before illegals began invading America. Our border situation is obscene!!
I LOVE the orchestrated push back against people who delay or choose to spread out childhood vaccinations. Now, there are two separate components to the actions of the Rockland County authorities. I’ll deal with them separately
The first is the idea that this is a public health crisis. First of all, 90-95% of those vaccinated using MMRII develop effective immunity against measles. Unlike some other vaccines, MMRII is actually pretty effective. However, it is being discovered that the effective antibody production tends to dissipate over time, so that authorities are now recommending a booster every 10-15 years to maintain effective immunity. Interestingly, it appears that exposure to wild measles produces life-long immunity. So, those born in the last thirty years could well be vectors for the disease, as their immunity wears off. Freshly vaccinated children, or at least 90% of them, should have effective immunity, so they should not contract the disease, even if exposed to it. That is the whole point of being vaccinated. It is to give the person vaccinated immunity IF exposed to the disease. It, therefor, becomes the responsibility of the person vaccinated to make sure that his or her immunity is active. Our medical society, by embracing the still unproven herd immunity theory, has gotten it bass ackwards. Also, there have been a whopping 314 cases out of 314,000,000 people in the country. That is 0.0001% of the population. That is statistically INSIGNIFICANT. There is NO MEASLES CRISIS in the US.
Now, this law is essentially unenforceable and probably unconstitutional. In the first place, it is discriminatory in that it applies ONLY to children. And, Measles is not significantly dangerous. While the official mortality rate from measles is 1/1000, it is probably closer to 1/7500 as a significant number of measles cases are not reported. And, as we usually see less than 1000 reported measles cases/year, in the US, we haven’t had a measles fatality since 2015. On the other hand, we have around 50,000 flu related deaths a year and ~200 million infected. And, influenza vaccines are not required. The mortality rate for TB is 12.3% and we have around 9000 cases every year, in the US. We allow active AIDS and HIV patients to walk among us, unmolested and the mortality rate for those diseases has been almost 100%. While the power to quarantine ACTIVE cases of highly infectious diseases has been generally accepted as being constitutional, only in very restrictive settings, such as for admission to schools, has statutory or regulatory exclusion based upon failure to be vaccinated against the disease been upheld. Even Rockland County admits that the prohibition is unenforceable. This is just more feel-good Progressive BS.