By Andy Brack
Did you get your flu shot yet? How about your Covid vaccine? Or did you and your kids get vaccinated for measles?
No? Well that’s why the state health department is forced to issue this kind of statement:
“Measles is highly contagious and there is risk for continued, rapid spread of the disease in the Upstate among communities with low immunization rates,” said the state’s epidemiologist, Dr. Linda Bell, on Thursday.
Just having to issue such a statement must drive public health officials crazy. Why? Because measles was officially declared eliminated in the United States by the World Health Organization in 2000 – until preening politicians and anti-vaccination activists got in the business of spreading outright falsehoods about vaccinations. If people would turn off information from non-scientists and listen to the facts, they might understand vaccines are an incredibly strong treatment to keep communicable diseases at bay.
But no, they’d rather believe something they turn up in “research” based on some stupid post on the Internet than listen to scientists and doctors who actually know what they’re talking about.
We wouldn’t be having measles outbreaks in this country if the weirdo world would stop listening to the nonsense spewing out of the non-science mouths of “vaccine skeptics” like U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Yep – the guy who claimed a worm was eating his brain, who dumped a dead bear carcass in Central Park and who can’t seem to get facts straight whenever testifying before Congress.
According to the state Department of Public Health (DPH), South Carolina now has eight confirmed cases of measles in the Upstate. While it may not sound like a lot, remember that measles spread more quickly than rabbits making new rabbits. And what’s most worrisome to scientists, here and across the country, is how the unvaccinated people who have the disease got it from unknown sources, which indicates what Bell called “unrecognized community spread.”
She said the department anticipates more cases will be identified.
“(We) implore community members to act responsibly,” she said. “If you are ill, stay home. Notify a health care provider by phone of symptoms suggestive of measles before visiting a clinic. Follow guidance for control measures and cooperate with DPH investigations.”
The painful virus spreads easily by air when someone with the disease breathes, coughs or sneezes.
“At this time, it is very important to get better protection against measles spread in our communities by increasing measles vaccination coverage.”
Put more bluntly, if you are unvaccinated for measles, stop being stupid. Measles vaccines work and are safe, preventing infections with a 97% rate of effectiveness, according to the department.
“Measles virus can remain infectious in the air in a confined area for up to two hours after the sick person is gone from the area. People with measles should stay home from work and school and avoid contact with others for four days after their rash first appears.”
If you’re not vaccinated against measles – or against flu or Covid, for that matter – talk with a real doctor, listen and get the shots. Doing so is a community responsibility because it helps to keep everyone, including you and your loved ones, safer.
Learn more online about measles from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: cdc.gov/measles/vaccines/index.html
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of the Charleston City Paper and Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send it to feedback@statehousereport.com.
