A seventh case, the first in a child under age 5, follows the state’s controversial surgeon general’s decision to let parents decide whether to quarantine children or keep them in school.

The Florida measles outbreak is expanding. On Friday, health officials in Broward County confirmed a seventh case of the virus, a child under age 5.

The patient is the youngest so far to be infected in the outbreak, and the first to be identified outside of Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston, near Fort Lauderdale.

It’s unknown what connection the youngest measles case has to the school, but the spread beyond school-age kids was expected.

Cases are “not going to stay contained just to that one school, not when a virus is this infectious,” said Dr. David Kimberlin, co-director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

  • @[email protected]
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    141 year ago

    Hey on a side note I have no idea if I ever got my second shot as a kid. There is only a record of one shot and my mom can’t remember. I have always figured that with herd immunity one would be good enough. Seeing that herd immunity is now in question I am wondering if I might need to re-up. Any have any experience with this? One or two shots? I will ask the doc next time, but in the meantime let’s get some random inter-mation

    • Drusas
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      21 year ago

      In general, you need two doses, but as someone else mentioned, you can check your antibody status by having a titer drawn.

    • @[email protected]
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      141 year ago

      Just let your GP know. I recently got a blood test done to figure out what I’ve been immunised against. Highly recommend.

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        ^This. You can get titers checked for all of your childhood vaccinations. Hep B is a good one to check because it doesn’t always “stick” even when you get 2 doses as a kid. Almost every childhood vaccination can be given to adults with roughly equivalent effectiveness.

    • Flying Squid
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      1 year ago

      Here is the problem as I see it and I don’t know a way around it:

      *There are some kids who cannot get vaccinated for legitimate reasons such as allergies or being immunocompromised.

      *There are highly unethical anti-vax doctors willing to give anti-vax parents fake exemptions based on those legitimate reasons that their kids don’t actually have.

      So how do you get around that?

      • @[email protected]
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        121 year ago

        Investigate those exemptions and make sure they are legit. Fire any doctor who gives out fake ones.

      • @[email protected]
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        331 year ago

        A brief search indicates that only 1-2% of children are unable to receive traditional vaccinations due to allergies or immunocompromised conditions.

        I’m willing to bet that the unethical doctors writing exemptions likely have an unbalanced amount of child-vaccination exemptions to administered child-vaccinations ratio. Such discrepancies should be thoroughly investigated.

        In other words, if more than 2 out of every 100 children, a particular doctor consults with, are given vaccination exemptions, then something is suspicious.

        • Flying Squid
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          81 year ago

          That might work. In a sane state. Unfortunately, Florida would likely just let doctors get away with it if some such law astoundingly got passed. Their surgeon general is an anti-vaxer.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            Yeah. It’s truly bat-shit crazy watching what’s going on. What a miracle vaccinations are, a true testament to mankind’s prowess. Then Florida does this (Alabama - lookin’ at you too, bruh).

        • @[email protected]
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          41 year ago

          That doesn’t work. Doctors specialize in specific things. There are probably doctors who legitimately have 100% vaccine exempt patients for medical reasons.

          The real problem is that doctors can’t be “fired”. Stop asking the government to do something when it’s really the AMA licensing board that is the problem.

          It’s a private organization that is run by doctors. Obviously doctors are not going to prioritize making it easier to take away someone’s license. Demand the AMA do something about “killer doctors” or something. If their brand is associated with sickness, then they might take action.

        • @[email protected]
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          71 year ago

          There’s a lot off distance between “something is suspicious” and “this individual is criminally liable”.

          • @[email protected]
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            31 year ago

            Criminally dubious, indeed. But here we are, where laws in this and many other regressive states are breaking and bending in ways that befuddle the mind - the educated mind at least.

  • @[email protected]
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    101 year ago

    Eh well this is how it goes. People aren’t really all that intelligent and we operate mostly of emotion, or rationalization.

  • kreekybonez
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    381 year ago

    and then when it gets too hot down there, all of the snowbirds migrate out and start an insane summer spread for the rest of the continent

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      The vast majority of snowbirds would be vaccinated.

      The antivax movement wasn’t as big when they were kids, they would have gotten their shots back then.

      • @[email protected]
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        91 year ago

        Mmr does wear off though. Some older Americans got titers drawn and showed they were no longer immune so they got a third shot.

        Not sure what he acip recommendation on that is though.

        • @[email protected]
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          81 year ago

          If this continues (and given this dumbass surgeon general and the antivax movement it will), we might start getting recommendations to get your MMR checked after X years or even for everyone to get it checked.

  • @[email protected]
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    31 year ago

    If you don’t vaccinate your kids against dangerous diseases, you’re a dummy. Vaccines are safe and needed to keep EVERYONE safe from outbreaks.

    Frankly, vaccination shouldn’t even be up for debate. The science speaks for itself. It’s infuriating that there are people who endanger their own child and others based on a poor grasp of science and medicine.

  • @[email protected]
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    701 year ago

    It’s not a controversial decision… it’s a dumb as fuck decision not based in medicine or science.

    • @[email protected]
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      481 year ago

      Anyone whose kid catches measles because of this should sue the surgeon general for malpractice. Maybe also drop a complaint to the medical board, see if they can get his medical license revoked.

      • @[email protected]
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        101 year ago

        As much as I’d love to see that, the likelihood of it happening is low. The boards move on public opinion and consensus. The public they care about may be only other doctors, but as we’ve seen since covid, there are plenty of doctors who listened to Ozzy and boarded the crazy train.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          Public consensus is that vaccines for diseases like measles, polio, etc., are a good thing. Even most of the people and doctors who were against taking the covid vaccines seem to be in agreement with this, or at least the ones I have heard speak on the subject. Its just an extremely small outlier that claims otherwise.

          Still, I feel like you are sadly right about the likelihood of any sort of prosecution happening. I would also love to see logic prevail, every once in a while.

          • @[email protected]
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            21 year ago

            MMR was the boogeyman jab that started the whole modern antivax movement. I wouldn’t say it’s rare for antivax people to be opposed to getting the measles vaccination.

    • Drusas
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      21 year ago

      It’s not those kids’ fault and they’re the ones suffering.

  • Optional
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    271 year ago

    Florida, Florida, Florida.

    Mmm! Very stupid. Much wow.

    Good luck!