from the getting-worse dept

I’m certain some people are getting tired of this refrain, but I’m going to keep repeating it to make the point: we shouldn’t have to talk about measles in this country in 2025. This is a disease that had been officially put in elimination status for America over two decades ago. We were done with this, thanks in large part to a dedicated campaign of MMR vaccinations and a government that advocated for those same vaccinations. It was after that when the anti-vaxxer campaigns really began to spring up. RFK Jr. was, of course, one of, if not the, leading voices in that movement.

Now that he is in charge of American health, I suppose it’s not surprising to see measles included in a number of diseases that are raging when they shouldn’t be. We recently talked about an outbreak currently going in South Carolina, which itself originated from the Texas outbreak earlier in the year. Well, that outbreak is getting worse, and health officials are suggesting it will continue getting even worse for some time.

A measles outbreak that began in South Carolina at the start of October is showing no signs of slowing as officials on Tuesday reported 27 new cases since Friday. Those cases bring the outbreak total to 111.

In an update on Tuesday, South Carolina’s health department suggested the spread is far from over. Of the state’s 27 new cases, 16 were linked to exposure at a church, the Way of Truth Church in Inman. And amid the new cases, new exposures were identified at Inman Intermediate School. That’s on top of exposures announced Friday at four other schools in the region, which led to well over 100 students being quarantined.

The end result is that there are, as of this writing, over 250 people quarantining. All of them reportedly are both unvaccinated for measles and have been recently exposed to the disease. If any appreciable percentage of those in quarantine end up ill, and I have no doubt that will happen, it could mean that there is a much larger pre-symptom spread that occurred, which itself will lead to even more infections. That how infectious diseases work, after all, and there are few if any diseases as infectious as measles.

And these are, of course, in counties and areas where there are both relatively low vaccination rates and a very high rate of those seeking religious exemptions from vaccination requirements.

The two counties’ low vaccination rates are coupled with high rates of religious exemptions. Spartanburg has the state’s highest rate, with 8.2 percent of students exempt from the school vaccination requirement based on religious beliefs. Neighboring Greenville has a religious vaccination exemption rate of 5.3 percent.

It’s very interesting just how much one god or another enjoys infecting their believers with measles.

This continues to be a problem nation wide. We’re quickly approaching 2,000 (!!!!!) confirmed cases of measles this year, blowing past total case counts for the last several decades. More undiagnosed cases certainly exist. We’re going to blow way past that 2,000 number as well, in no small part thanks to this outbreak in South Carolina.

Measles is a horrible disease. Just get your damned shots.

Filed Under: anti-vaxxers, measles, outbreak, south carolina, vaccines