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Samoa Shuts Down in Unprecedented Battle Against Measles
Samoa shuts down in unprecedented battle against measles
Samoa began a two-day shutdown on Thursday as authorities embarked on an unprecedented mass vaccination campaign to contain a deadly outbreak of measles that has killed 62 people, mostly small children, in the Pacific island nation.
Officials suspended non-essential government services to allow civil servants to support the vaccination drive, and ordered all businesses to close. Inter-island ferry services were also cancelled.
"No one is being permitted to drive unless they are going to hospital or they have special permission," Al Jazeera's Jessica Washington said from the capital, Apia. Behind her wide streets were all but empty of people and cars.
"The ban is to make it as simple as possible for the medical teams to travel throughout Samoa and access as many families as possible."
Red Flags To Mark Homes Of Unvaccinated In Samoa, Officials Say
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
People who have not been vaccinated against the measles virus should mark their homes with red flags, Samoan officials announced Tuesday.
The outbreak has flourished after the vaccination rate of infants plunged to an estimated 31 percent last year. Health officials linked the drop in vaccination to the tragic deaths of two infants, who were given measles vaccines tainted with fatal doses of muscle relaxant. Two nurses were convicted in the cases and sentenced to five years in prison. Despite the convictions, anti-vaccine advocates have used the cases to drum up fear of vaccines.
As the outbreak took off last month, the Samoan government declared a state of emergency. It has closed schools, banned children from public gatherings, and begun a mass vaccination campaign. Samoa has since vaccinated over 58,000 people.
NB: The population of Samoa is just under 200,000 people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @03:46PM
You also don't even necessarily need maliciousness.
The problem with macro-scale things, especially as society is changing so radically fast is that you really can find compelling arguments to the contrary. For instance the past 3 decades have seen genetically engineered products in the US become ubiquitous, the rise of the internet, super-hyper-exponential usage of psychotropics, a substantial decline in IQ in developed nations (even controlling for e.g. immigration), sharp declines in fertility in most places, and a million other factors and effects. And then take things like the recent discovery [sky.com] that psychotropics in fish can cause multi-generational effects that don't cause any significant impact on the individual level, yet cause potentially catastrophic effects on a population level.
The world was a much simpler time when our only extravagances were some insecticide, cigarettes, and leaded fuel. Part of the reason I think people should give the prevalent views sufficient weighting, but people should do what they think is right. The odds of us not effectively poisoning ourselves, one way or the other, right now are probably very close to 0.