Yesterday during vespers I thought about reading philosophy, especially because there was a raft of new orders and policies that I hadn’t looked at yet, having spent the last couple days in knitting-and-napping mode as I fought off whatever is going around. One of the policies is about withholding federal funds for schools that have any sort of COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
While I was writing some broad bullet points about how this is a nonsensical regulation on several fronts, I was noticing that the language positions the order in such a way that it scales easily, meaning that the specifics of the trigger (COVID-19) are not as central to the language as the condition of the trigger (vaccine mandates), and this could cause a lot of confusion simply in the way it is written, and it also opens the way to a broad interpretation.
Of course, what I was most interested in is the balance of who sets policies of public health and what these policy “jurisdictions” mean for education. I was getting a good groove on the writing (no, I still haven’t picked up Community yet, thanks for noticing) when I decided to check in on the measles.
Measles and polio vaccinations were largely lauded as a triumph of public health policy, and the public vaccination campaigns were successful in both cases exactly because they partnered with schools. Even Mary Baker Eddy (the founder of the Christian Scientists, the sect that holds that illness is god’s will) said that overall public health considerations were important enough to allow vaccination among CS followers.
The twenty-first century anti-vax movement in the US created holes in the measles vaccine shield in some of the most privileged communities in the country, and we had an outbreak in 2014 in California, a public health emergency so dramatic that California reversed its long-standing allowance for “personal choice” exemption of childhood vaccinations, a policy of which it was quite proud, and overall a policy that was very on-brand for California. And all of a sudden I couldn’t remember the name of the county, or the name of the Governor who reversed the policy, and man, having a TBI is wild, but thank goodness there’s google.
I opened a search page for “What county had a measles outbreak in California in 2014.” I expected to have to sift thorough the Chicago 2024 outbreak (60 cases) because google likes recent results that are nearly accurate over more tightly controlled adherence to search terms, but instead I got a raft of results about the current, ongoing, right this very now, Gaines County, Texas measles outbreak of 48 cases, with half of those coming in the last three days. Gaines County is in rural west Texas near the Arizona border, and it has an eye-poppingly low childhood vaccination rate. The official tally is that 14% of the children are under vaccinated, but the record doesn’t reflect the very large percentage of Gaines County school age children who are homeschooled or enrolled in private schools.
By then it was officially compline, but I was in no way ready for bed. I hadn’t moved. I was sitting very still, contemplating what a large-scale measles outbreak might look like for the United States.
Measles has an infection rate of 90% in the vulnerable: that means that 9 out of 10 unvaccinated people will get the measles if they are exposed to it. It’s wildly contagious. There is no treatment. Patients are usually contagious for 4 or 5 days before symptoms appear, and symptoms are notably a rash and a fever. Key treatments for an infected patient involve making sure hydration and minimum nutrition is maintained, and of course rest. The rash and fever usually clear up in 7-10 days, and patients usually recover fully in 2-3 weeks. What makes measles so rotten is the complications that come with it:
- 1 in 5 patients ends up hospitalized.
- 1 in 20 come down with pneumonia, the leading cause of measles-related death.
- 1 in 1000 develop brain swelling that leads to permanent deafness, convulsions, or intellectual disabilities.
- 1-3 in 1000 patients dies due to respiratory or neurological complications. While measles is associated with children, anyone can get measles at any age.
The measles vaccine is only 56 years old. It was introduced in 1968, and was so effective that in 1978, the CDC set a measles elimination goal by 1982. A measles outbreak amongst the vaccinated in 1989 prompted the CDC to recommend a measles booster. In 2000, the US was declared measles free as a result of 25 years of high vaccination rates across the country.
I don’t have a clue how Covid or modern influenza affects the numbers. We haven’t really needed to know that, given the effectiveness of the vaccine and the presence of the shield (90+ percent vaccination rate is needed to maintain group immunity). I don’t know what a measles mutation might look like, or what it would mean for public health. Given how adept Covid seems to be at mutating, I’m not sure I want to see a measles variant that has made friends with Covid.
Freaking measles, man.
Of course, if you need to update your vaccination or your booster, please contact your local health department or health provider. The vaccine is widely available and affordable, possibly even free, and effective immunity occurs in less than 3 weeks.
