SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Emergency Declared in NY over Measles: Unvaccinated Barred from Public Spaces:
Plagued by a tenacious outbreak of measles that began last October, New York's Rockland County declared a state of emergency Tuesday and issued a directive barring unvaccinated children from all public spaces.
Effective at midnight Wednesday, March 27, anyone aged 18 or younger who has not been vaccinated against the measles is prohibited from public spaces in Rockland for 30 days or until they get vaccinated. Public spaces are defined broadly in the directive as any places:
[W]here more than 10 persons are intended to congregate for purposes such as civic, governmental, social, or religious functions, or for recreation or shopping, or for food or drink consumption, or awaiting transportation, or for daycare or educational purposes, or for medical treatment. A place of public assembly shall also include public transportation vehicles, including but not limited to, publicly or privately owned buses or trains...
The directive follows an order from the county last December that barred unvaccinated children from schools that did not reach a minimum of 95 percent vaccination rate. That order—and the directive issued today—are intended to thwart the long-standing outbreak, which has sickened 153 people, mostly children.
What were they waiting for? A pox on them all?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @01:39PM (39 children)
So at least 8% of the cases were vaccinated, but the population is ~95% vaccinated. Hmm, if only we could apply some math to figure out how effective the MMR vaccine really is. Nah, this is medicine.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @01:59PM (6 children)
How did they even get these numbers? If there are 153 cases 82.1% would be 125.613 children.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday March 27 2019, @08:57PM (5 children)
It's not 153 Cases like Beth says. It's 155. SPREADING LIKE WILDFIRE!!!!!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @09:51PM (4 children)
Here are the results for +/- 50 cases:
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday March 27 2019, @10:13PM (3 children)
Beautiful spreadsheet, great job but they're not saying 82.1% right now. They're saying 82.6% and they're saying 155 cases. That's the latest from the D.O.H., the Department of Health. Not from Beth Mole. And I think that one works out O.K. Unlike what Beth put, what she has in her article.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @10:35PM (2 children)
Well where did 82.1 come from? That was a direct copy/paste.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday March 27 2019, @11:10PM (1 child)
The 82.1% isn't from Beth, it's not in her article. Ammonyous tweeted it and that, I assume, is where I saw it. The 153 is in her article. D.O.H., right now is saying 155. And, they're saying 82.6%. Possibly they said 82.1% before, and possibly they said 153 -- who knows? Sorry Beth, I'll make it up to you. As only a man can do!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @11:17PM
I quoted that number accurately, I'll stake my reputation on it. Wayback machine it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:37PM (8 children)
More data:
http://rocklandgov.com/departments/health/measles-information/ [rocklandgov.com]
Not sure where they are getting these numbers from. Mine are:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1815949/ [nih.gov]
So their (unsourced) estimate of the complications are pretty close, but 2-5x too high for some issues.
Compare to the side effects of MMR (from ~1500 children):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6343620/ [nih.gov]
And I wonder about the 100% of cases had a fever and rash assumption since pre-vaccine only ~15% of measles cases ever got reported. It would make sense if those were the most extreme/classic cases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:03PM
Found ear infections after MMR:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6343620/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:17PM (3 children)
Wow, just comparing data from the medical literature and a lay medical site is "trolling" now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:32PM
Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing. Maybe someone just hit the wrong button when doing their mod?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @05:04PM (1 child)
you must be new here. just mentioning thruths that are inconvenient to what these idiots think is counterculture (actually programmed into their slave brains by the establishment) is routinely modded as trolling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @01:16AM
Which is, frankly, why I don't like this system of up/down modding comments her on SN (or that green site). If someone (dis)agrees with someone else's comment I would much rather they tell us why they (dis)agree along with giving us (hopefully) cogent arguments to bolster their case. With the modding of comments you too frequently have a bunch of dittoheads coming through to give us their pretty much useless opinions on the comments of others. Just my take.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @05:22PM (1 child)
The source for the first seems to be the slide set from CDC, it seems to have the same numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @07:01PM
Where did the CDC get them? Can they be traced back to a specific dataset?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday March 28 2019, @06:02AM
There's also a sort of post-measles syndrome that causes the immune system to do a complete shutdown and reset, almost like short-term AIDS. So until either re-exposed or revaccinated, the post-measles patient is once again vulnerable to all sorts of "childhood diseases", even if they previously had good immunity.
[Too lazy to look up the source again but was from good research, and rather alarming.]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Touché) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:51PM (5 children)
Your gibbering is so mathemeatically incoherent, I honestly can't work out what actual point you're trying to make. The fact that the only bit I could work out was just plain wrong (at least in all countries I know of) doesn't give me much faith there is a coherent argument anywhere.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:09PM (3 children)
Depends on the age of the child. During the interim the child is "properly" vaccinated. In the future "properly vaccinated" will likely mean three vaccinations btw, as the weaker antibodies begin to wane from the vaccinated generation.
I am not choosing any population. Where do you see me seem to choose one? They do not share that data with us.
Well if you see me "choosing populations" when I did no such thing I can see why you would think it was incoherent. But that problem lies with you making stuff up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:12PM
typo:
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday March 28 2019, @12:17AM (1 child)
Lack of actual response argument, apart from flailing wildly, noted.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @12:35AM
No, I really do not know how many students are in these schools who were "exposed". They chose to not tell us that for whatever reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @03:45AM
Read the MMR vaccine insert. The vaccine only provides temporary protection. If you want to be "fully" vaccinated you need to keep having the vaccine every few years.
Read the MMR vaccine insert. It's only effective in ~70% of people.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:35PM (5 children)
Ok I've read your post 3 times and I still can't figure out what point you think you're making. According to the very stats you posted, only 4% of the population is properly vaccinated.
I can't even guess as to how you got " the population is ~95% vaccinated."
Considering that you posted AC, I'm guessing you're just another troll, but a particularly inept one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:56PM (2 children)
different AC, but -
4% of the INFECTED are fully vaccinated (suggesting ~95% efficacy)
~95% TOTAL POPULATION are fully vaccinated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @06:11PM
I don't know how you came up with that "suggesting 95% efficacy", it seems completely bogus mathematics.
You cannot calculate the efficacy from the given numbers.
If we normalize the number of infected to 100 (with 4 being vaccinated) and assume that a fraction "f" of the population came in contact with the virus, equally between vaccinated and unvaccinated (unlikely, but we need some assumptions at least).
Then the total population "t" must be at least t >= 96/f (here already we have an error, some of those not vaccinated will be immune).
Now we have a vaccination rate "r", which for this area is UNKNOWN.
The number of vaccinated would thus be t*r >= (96/f)*r.
Applying the exposure fraction "f" to get those vaccinated and exposed would be >= 96*r.
As of those 4 got sick, so 4/(96*r) is the fraction of those vaccinated and exposed who got sick.
Which means efficacy of the vaccine would come out at 1 - 4/(96*r).
If you A PRIORY assume 95% vaccination rate, that would give a > 96% efficacy of the vaccination.
However it would be quite possible that half of those not vaccinated were already immune, in which case you would come out with a > 98% efficacy.
Or you could assume that those vaccinated belong to a different social circle and are less likely to be exposed, and then you get a lower efficacy.
So without clear data on the number of vaccinated people with exposure you can't calculate how effective the vaccination was.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:22AM
Actually the only thing it suggests is that the vaccine is not 100% effective (we already knew that). You would need to know how many fully vaccinated were exposed to measles and how many un-vaccinated were exposed to compute the effectiveness of the vaccine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:57PM
It says in the summary they target 95% vaccination rates. I took that as a rough estimate:
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday March 27 2019, @04:27PM
I am reading it as:
For the *confirmed cases*, there were only 4% that had the proper vaccinations.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @05:29PM (10 children)
Uh, that math is well known. The effectiveness of the vaccine is such that 1 vaccination is not sufficient to achieve herd immunity even if everyone was vaccinated.
Thus the need for 2 vaccinations, which with a > 96% (I think) vaccination rate in the population allows for herd immunity.
That is the reason why those exceptions are a MAJOR issue in cases of measles.
Btw. even if the vaccine had significant side effects, this would still at best be a "tragedy of the commons" case. With enough people being vaccinated we could eradicate measles like we did for other humans-only sicknesses, which means the anti-vaccination people could then live happily ever after. We'd just need to make the sacrifice ONCE, world-wide.
Instead it looks like we might be stuck with the suffering measles causes for all eternity. Millions and millions of dead people for essentially no reason. Can we call those refusing vaccinations mass murderers? (no, not really serious, but anyone refusing measles vaccination for themselves or their children is really, really VERY far from any moral high road)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @06:11PM (8 children)
Two vaccines are also clearly insufficient for herd immunity. If there was herd immunity the virus would die out.
Yes, this was the original goal of measles vaccinations. They didn't believe that measles could survive long in the air at the time so thought it would be much easier.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6939399 [nih.gov]
Soon after it was realized that the failure to eradicate meant people needed to pay for vaccines in perpetuity:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1228954/ [nih.gov]
But by the 1980s it was realized that actually "near eradication" is the worst possible thing you can do since it lets susceptibles build up until a massive epidemic gets triggered:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12176860 [nih.gov]
These tiny outbreaks are probably good in the long run actually, like a small release of pressure instead of a big explosion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @06:54PM (7 children)
I don't know where you get the claim that 2 vaccinations are not enough from.
Of course you can't get herd immunity from vaccinating 1 single person.
You need about 95% to 98% vaccination rate.
Which no doubt makes eradication hard.
The article you quoted is not really relevant, that was about "eradication" in the US only.
That was never going to work.
It needs to be world-wide.
Yes, that would need large scale and possibly non-voluntary vaccinations.
Yes, that would mean not being able to travel to or from certain countries unless you are vaccinated.
This might sound extreme, but 100s of thousands of deaths world wide are pretty harsh, too.
The response to measles and lack of true eradication efforts is completely out of whack compared to the disease's immense human cost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @07:17PM (6 children)
Because the "herd" obviously is not "immune". Like many things having to do with vaccines, the definition of "herd immunity" has weakened to mean something vague like "virus spreads less". It is supposed to mean literally that the virus does not spread and is eradicated (another term that has been weakened).
This would be true if the population was "well-mixed" (everyone had equal chance of meeting everyone else). Otherwise, it depends.
You are basically saying measles vaccination campaign was based on lies then, because most people didn't care about measles but they sold it as the "end measles campaign":
http://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_id/10232 [nysed.gov]
Personally, I do believe they thought it would work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @08:36PM (5 children)
> Because the "herd" obviously is not "immune"
Because we can't achieve the required vaccination rates!
> the definition of "herd immunity" has weakened to mean something vague like "virus spreads less".
As far as I know it still means "statistically an infection introduced will die out". It doesn't mean that nobody will get sick if you continue to introduce the virus from outside again and again!
I'll grant you that the required vaccination rate needed certainly depends on how many people the virus can effect, and there certainly is a risk that if this number increases the virus might not be controllable. However the fact that the virus has stayed confined to communities with low vaccination rates suggests that that is not actually the case so far.
> You are basically saying measles vaccination campaign was based on lies then, because most people didn't care about measles but they sold it as the "end measles campaign"
I can't tell from a 3 word slogan what they meant. But if you go back to the 60s I should probably amend it to "it was never going to work with the massive amounts of long-distance and international travel to regions where measles is epidemic and in a world where you do not need to have your vaccination pass to travel".
I would also add that many years ago there was the ambition of spreading vaccinations world-wide so that it would be eradicated world wide. But instead of in one go the idea was to go continent by continent. That has failed because America and Europe are now backsliding faster than India or Africa make progress on measles vaccination (and as said, 0 effort on preventing re-introduction of measles from affected countries).
"Nobody gives a shit" is the most accure description of why measles eradication is failing for now. I will though admit it is not a CERTAINTY that complete elimination is possible at all, but I don't see hard evidence it is not possible either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @08:45PM (4 children)
You do not need to tell from a 3 word quote. I shared a quote from the guy responsible at the CDC (Alexander Langmuir) apologizing for it above.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @09:25PM (3 children)
Full article seems to be paid, but your quotes don't really say whether they expected to have measles disappear forever from the US just by vaccinating everyone inside the US for a few years and then stopping.
The specific parts you quote seem to be around the heavily underestimated infectiousness of measles.
That underestimation is the reason why people like me only got 1 dose of vaccine back in the 80s.
The 2 dose regime to my knowledge is sufficient to compensate for that.
But I don't see how that would have changed the situation that as long as the measles virus exists anywhere in the world you simply cannot stop vaccinating in the US, that would be a horribly irresponsible idea! I do not know for sure, but I really can't imagine that anyone ever imagined that.
As said, to my knowledge the plan was to extend vaccination until the whole world was covered and the virus eradicated. A plan which is under threat of completely falling apart due to the combination of anti-vaccination sentiments in America and Europe on the one hand and lack of progress in e.g. Africa and Asia on the other hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @09:58PM (2 children)
From here you can get the DOI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6939399 [nih.gov]
Then paste it in like this: https://sci-hub.tw/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1980.tb18903.x [sci-hub.tw]
The domain changes every now and then... just google it. You also may be able to use the pubmed ID, but I use an addon that redirects the DOI links.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @11:38PM (1 child)
The paper mixes wrong assumptions and corrections wildly, so it's hard to make short convincing quotes
> If the immunity were steadily maintained at such a high level, no measles epidemic could arise.
This was a statement related to the original theory. I think it shows what I said: the assumption was from the start a high level of immunity via vaccination would be required for a prolonged time.
> Intrinsic in my personal thinking was the mistaken belief that once measles was eliminated from a community its reintroduction and beginning spread would lead to a spontaneous community response to immunize all susceptibles in the immediate vicinity and thus promptly snuff out the disease.
And at least here, too low vaccination rates are put up as a prime cause (though on this there seems no consistent line).
> Incidence further dropped to 50,000 in 1967 and to 25,000 in 1968 but since then has continued a fluctuating course
Going by this quote, where the author comes from is that incidents in the 10000s mean a failure of the eradication program. By that standard, measles is still eradicated in the US.
And going back to an earlier quote:
> An introduction From outside would possibly lead to a sputtering outbreak for a few generations but an epidemic could not ensue
The original plan actually anticipated the desired state to include occasional multi-generation outbreaks!
> It is clear however that airborne infection is sufficiently common and important to be a determining factor in the continuance of measles at the present time. It must receive due respect and weight in planning the future steps necessary for eradication.
I would claim that has been done, by raising the goals to something like 95% immune people (which I think actually means 98% of people being vaccinated twice).
I do not see a failure in the plan so far, only in the failure to enact it.
In the end, the paper was about the theory of how the diseases spread being utterly un-sound, the mathematics unreasonably simplified etc.
However the statistical behaviour that sufficient immunity will limit the spread of the disease and if global eliminate it has not been shown wrong.
And the practical results I also think still indicate that sufficient immunity via vaccinations is indeed achievable, though possibly not on voluntary basis. And with the current ambition level clearly not world-wide.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @03:32AM
Welcome to the real world where no one knows what they are doing. The only question is whether you are on the side of popular people who don't know what they are doing telling you what to do or not.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday March 27 2019, @08:48PM
Can we call it murder when nobody dies? Very rare for somebody to die from the measles. And I'm sure if it happens, Beth Mole will tell us -- as loudly as possible.
And, you say, "oh let's Eradicate measles like we did for so many other diseases!" I don't think so. I don't think so. Eradicate, I think, is it's gone. Nobody catching it. Nobody having it. And they're so proud that they did that with smallpox. Something that, by the way, took 200 years. Congratulations on the smallpox but, what else? That's the only one they say, eradicated. You say diseases, it's not diseases, it's one disease.