USA Measles Futures Up Sharply In Early Trading

Thanks, Florida and antivaxxers nationwide.

I had actually forgotten this was the episode where Homer built Bart the scary clown bed. I wonder if the Flanderses vaccinate?

Thanks to a rise in people not getting their kids recommended childhood vaccines, the US has, by the middle of March (sounds like a book!), already surpassed the number of cases of measles recorded in all of 2023. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tallied at least 64 confirmed or suspected cases reported by health authorities in 17 states, topping 2023’s 58 cases. And as CBS News reports, the news comes as

health officials are grappling with multiple major outbreaks of the highly contagious virus around the world. 

Now with spring break travel picking up, health officials have ramped up pleas and updated their guidance for Americans to make sure they are up to date on the highly effective vaccines used to protect against measles.

As with other outbreaks in recent years, measles is mostly spreading in communities with low vaccination rates after someone from those communities travels to countries that are having outbreaks, the CDC said in a March 18 alert:

Declines in measles vaccination rates globally have increased the risk of measles outbreaks worldwide, including in the United States. Measles cases continue to be brought into the United States by travelers who are infected while in other countries. […] Most importations come from unvaccinated U.S. residents.

And let’s just stress that in 2000, measles in the US was declared to have been eliminated by widespread vaccination. That’s defined by the World Health Organization as “the absence of endemic measles virus transmission in a defined geographical area (e.g. region or country) for at least 12 months in the presence of a surveillance system that has been verified to be performing well.”

And while Florida’s quack “Surgeon General” Joseph Ladapo certainly hasn’t been helping, US measles outbreaks aren’t just a Florida problem, because anti-vaccine madness predated MAGA — it’s just become a part of that subculture, too. So far in 2024, there have been at least one case of measles reported in 17 states (take a breath if you’re reading this in horror to someone else): Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington. (How is Idaho not on that list yet? We have so many anti-health crazies here!)

The February outbreak in Broward County, Florida — 10 infections, nine of them at a single elementary school — is now the nation’s second-largest, after a measles outbreak in the Chicago area, with 17 infections. Most of the Illinois infections occurred at a migrant shelter in Pilsen, where authorities have been taking measures to control the outbreak including providing vaccines, quarantine, and relocating people who can’t be vaccinated, like pregnant women, to hotels.

Measles is extremely infectious, and people with the virus can spread it to others up to four days before they have any symptoms themselves. It can take up to two weeks for symptoms to appear after infection. And as Scientific American reminds us,

Anyone can catch measles, but children—particularly those two years old or younger with a still-developing immune system—are the most susceptible. There is no specific treatment for measles, and in some cases the disease can cause ear infections, diarrhea, pneumonia and encephalitis (swelling of the brain that can lead to a permanent disability); occasionally it can result in death

If you ask the measles virus if it’s better off today than it was four years ago, it would readily agree; in the pandemic year, with schools mostly closed, there were only 13 cases in the US. But we’ve also had far worse years for measles recently, with 1,274 cases in 2019, mostly in communities with large groups of unvaccinated people.

Worst of all, the return of measles in the US is due entirely to people choosing not to get themselves or their kids vaccinated, even though the recommended two-dose vaccine is safe and highly effective, preventing infection 93 percent of the time after one shot, 97 percent after two.

Outside the US, by contrast, CBS News reports the current wave of outbreaks appears to have resulted from a “wide gap in immunity in many countries resulting from missed vaccinations during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Here, it’s by choice. Christ wept.

In addition to the cases that are linked to foreign travel, CBS News notes, three states tracked cases back to people who had traveled to Florida. Congratulations to Ron DeSantis, whose help to spread infectious diseases may end up having a national impact greater than his failed presidential campaign.

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PREVIOUSLY!

Quack FL Surgeon General OK With Sending Unvaccinated Kids To School During Measles Outbreak

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[CDC / CBS News / CDC Health Alert]

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