Alberta Claims Top Spot For Measles, Sorry American MAGA States!
Conservatives blame Justin Trudeau, as they do.
There’s a famous scene from Aaron Sorkin’s newsroom drama “The Newsroom” — a far inferior show to an earlier Canadian comedy of the same name — where jaded anchorman Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) argues America actually isn’t the greatest country in the world as advertised.
“We lead the world in only three categories,” he says in a clip that went viral on both the show and in real life. “Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies.”
This was back in 2012 when Barack Obama was in charge and the country still had international allies aside from Israel, but you’d think if there was anything America is nowadays leading the world in apart from imposing suicidal tariffs or kidnapping innocent brown people, it would be for something like the number of preventable measles cases. Instead, the sad distinction currently goes to the landlocked, largely MAGA-adjacent Canadian province of Alberta.
Not the number of cases per capita in a place with a population of under five million, but overall, with 1,314 confirmed cases since March and despite outbreaks in other regions such as Ontario and Texas starting months earlier. That’s 26 more than recorded across 39 states by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has yet to be shuttered by the current administration despite all the egghead scientists on the payroll. That number is likely going to get a lot higher since symptoms of the highly contagious disease typically develop 10 to 12 days after exposure, and the city of Calgary just wrapped up its superspreader Stampede week, an annual yeehaw celebration of cowboy culture and animal abuse that attracted an estimated 1.3 million people to Cowtown.
It’s probably for the best Edmonton didn’t get a Stanley Cup parade this summer after all.
This is all former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s fault, according to the Conservatives’ former health critic Michelle Rempel Garner in a lengthy post on the Space Nazi’s hellsite.
“Trudeau dined out on using dehumanizing and politically loaded terms to describe the vaccine hesitant, including ‘anti-vaxxer,’” wrote MRG while doing her best MTG impression. “The Liberal government has never issued a public apology for its vehemently hostile rhetoric toward vaccine-hesitant individuals, let alone devised strategies to reengage this demographic. As a result, it has entrenched a partisan divide in society, where vaccination status is viewed as a political virtue signal rather than a public health objective to be pursued collaboratively.”
You’d think if anywhere would be capable of maintaining herd immunity, it would be a place that prides itself on raising cattle, and there’s no small amount of irony that the hurtin’ Albertans uninterested in protecting their kids from preventable diseases are probably the same ones who DO want to protect their kids by banning books that might turn them gay or teach them empathy.
Rempel Garner said downplaying “rare but serious” side effects from vaccines by the Liberal government led to a drop in childhood measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccinations by parents who no longer trust The Man on medical matters and are too young to remember the days when catching the measles was often fatal for small children who — if they survive — can be left with major brain and/or spinal cord damage.
She’s not entirely wrong, as a desperate Trudeau did indeed urge Canadians to get whatever COVID jab is available at the first opportunity despite the National Advisory Council on Immunization claiming the AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson shots should ideally only be poked into people over 30 due to a minor risk of blood clots, while at the same time Health Canada officials were saying they’re perfectly fine for anyone 18 or older. And there was certainly no shortage of mixed messaging from government officials at a time when the science was rapidly evolving and everyone everywhere was freaking the fuck out.
A recent study found that two-dose MMR coverage fell by more than 10 percent among kids in four provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and New Brunswick) as well as the Yukon between 2019 and 2023, which could allow a disease that once killed more kids than polio make a roaring comeback like a resurrected horror movie slasher, even though the remedy has been readily available since the days of Beatlemania. Until recently it's mostly been a problem in developing countries where access to the wonders of modern medicine is limited, but overall coverage in Canada fell to 76 percent at last count, well below the 95 percent experts say is needed to maintain herd immunity.
The Calgary Nose Hill MP also found a way to be snotty about low vaccination rates by suggesting the post-pandemic surge in immigration has made the outbreak worse, and recommending health authorities track the citizenship status of infected individuals.
Even Donald Trump isn’t dumb enough to think there’s some sort of parental rights case to be made. (Or at least wasn’t as of the thing we’re about to quote. It’s always likely he’s become dumber.) Back in 2019, a total of 1,282 measles cases were the worst the US had seen in a quarter century, and it was enough for New York and Washington states to declare public health emergencies. Mandatory shots were backed by the threat of fines, and Dear Leader — who had previously bought into a debunked study that childhood vaccinations can lead to autism because of course he did — came around to encouraging parents to help make America great again by not letting their kids die from a disease that’d previously been wiped out nationwide. (“Measles elimination status” is achieved by a country when there hasn’t been sustained transmission of the virus in at least 12 months.)
“They have to get the shots,” he told CNN at the time. “The vaccinations are so important. This is really going around now. They have to get their shots.”
At least nobody in Alberta has died from the outbreak yet, although a baby born prematurely who got it from their unvaccinated mother passed away in Ontario last month. Which is surely somehow Trudeau’s fault too.
[CBC / National Post / City News / CNN / Wonkette Bluesky Starter Pack]
Shorter:
We refused vaccines and you made fun of us. Now look! A totally preventable vaccine available disease is spreading and it's all your fault for being mean!
You know, we were once on the verge of adding polio and measles to the list of eradicated diseases. Fucking anti-vaxxers. I’m sorry the anti-vax brain disease has spread to Canada.