nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33722047

Some doctors in Alberta have criticized officials for not declaring a health emergency in the western province where measles infections are surging.

Measles cases in Canada have far surpassed those in the United States as health officials in Alberta, a western province that has become a hot spot for the outbreak, have urged the provincial leader to declare a public health emergency to stave off infections.

Canada’s public health agency has recorded about 4,200 measles cases this year, more than three times as many as the 1,300 cases recorded in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The C.D.C. has also ranked Canada among the top 10 countries with the highest number of measles cases. It is the only Western nation on the list.

Alberta, which has low measles vaccine rates, has recorded about 1,600 cases. The largely conservative province has a deep and vocal level of skepticism about the public health system and vaccines, with many people mirroring some of the arguments made in the United States by the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Measles is an airborne virus and one of the world’s most infectious diseases, causing flulike symptoms and a rash. Severe cases can lead to hearing loss, pneumonia or swelling in the brain. Three people have died in the United States, while in Canada there has been one death, a premature baby who had contracted the virus in the womb.

The spread of measles has slowed in Ontario, the province with the largest number of cases. But health professionals say the opposite is true in Alberta, and many are criticizing the provincial government’s public health response.

“Our performance is so bad that we have more cases in a population of five million than the United States has in a population of 340 million,” said Dr. James Talbot, a former chief medical officer of health in Alberta.

  • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    12·
    3 days ago

    It’s a bit of both, or four things, really.

    Measles is insanely infectious. Covid has a reproductive number around 4 to 5 depending on urbanisation etc. Measles is generally estimated around 15 in the general population, but numbers go all the way to 200 for children in schools (as in 1 kid infects 200 kids).

    The measles vaccine is not perfect. It’s only about 97% effective after 20 years, meaning that if you had the shots, you still have about a 3% of getting measles.

    In Canada (and basically everywhere) measles vaccines are given at age one.

    And Alberta is full of complete fucking idiots who never got vaccinated. And those absolute morons tend to cluster is “crunchy suburban mom” clusters as well as “far right conspiracy nutcase” clusters.

    What ALWAYS happens is some unvaccinated kid gets measles, spreads it to other unvaccinated kids, and you get a small local outbreak. Some random unlucky 3%ers might get caught up, or some even less lucky babies, but generally that’s the end of it. That’s what used to happen, because overall immunity was high, and importantly, the parents of the unvaccinated kids were vaccinated.

    Now, the unvaccinated kids from the 90s are having kids. So when a small local outbreak happens, the sick kids bring it home. The parents spread it outside, to their also-unvaccinated friends and THEIR unvaccinated kids, and we’ve got not one outbreak, but a whole bunch.

    And that’s where the trouble starts, because 97% immunity is actually damned low. That’s 126000 people in Alberta who can get sick, and that’s much higher than the number of unvaccinated idiots (thank god). But now we’ve got tendrils of measles reaching out anywhere, finding new pockets of unvaccinated idiots where it can pop up.

    And there’s a fifth problem. And ironically, that’s the problem that nobody gets measles anymore. If you asked your great grandmother what you should do with a kid who has ten thousand little red bumps, she’d tell you to lock that kid in the bedroom, slide food under the door and keep them away from your other eleven children. If you ask your 28 year old neighbor, she’d probably tell you to rub crème on the poor kids irritated red skin.

    People don’t recognise measles anymore. It’s not a scary disease like it used to be. Nobody knows anyone who lost sight or hearing thanks to measles. Nobody knows anyone who lost a child to measles. I don’t even know anyone who knows anyone who has seen measles. And that’s great… Unless your collective health depends on it.