Yes. Seroconversion for measles after an MMR is an all or nothing response. After 1 dose, 75% of 6 month olds will convert, 93% of 15 month olds and up. After a second dose, 97% will seroconvert. (Interestingly, I just came across a study in Iran that showed lower rates of response, but I suspect that the issue there was poor refrigeration of the vaccine.) So a small percentage of those who had two doses will not have seroconverted, but they’re covered by herd immunity in a population where everyone was immunized.
If there is any doubt, it is cheaper and easier to simply administer a dose of MMR. It won’t hurt if the person has seroconverted already, and it will lead to most of those who hadn’t, becoming immune.
Healthcare workers have to prove immunity by titers in some cases, but the reality is, if you haven’t seroconverted after 3 doses, you might not seroconvert at all, no matter how many doses you have. In most settings, it makes far more sense to just administer a dose of MMR to all persons 6 months or older who cannot prove that they have yet received appropriate MMRs.
No. Worse than that. The outbreak in the migrant center is likely the result of unvaccinated people having come into contact with measles virus, which is now active in at least 17 states!
Florida, however, is special, because the surgeon general there is not mandating quarantine of those unimmunized persons who were exposed and who still refuse to be immunized, and because Florida is a prime spring tourism destination, and hence could serve as a super spreader hub, since people come to FL from all over the country and all over the world for its tourist attractions.
Well of course, that is how measles is transmitted. But the question is from where? An unvaccinated migrant in ChiTown coudl have been infected in Mexico before they crossed the border.
An outbreak in LA was traced to someone who landed on a Turkish airline. Its possible that Turkish flight had landed in Orlando first on its way to LA?
An outbreak in NorCal was traced to a child who had travelled ‘internationally’, whatever that means. (Coudl be someone who got off a plane from an overseas flight, was on a cruise, was an international who went to Disney World, or was a migrant seeking asylum.
Regardless, trying to link the outbreaks in 17 states to Florida’s pov is Public Health malpractice.
According to their GP and local health department. Perhaps there are other considerations as well, such as side effects from the booster (although that was not mentioned to us). We were told that they were not recommending the booster to most patients born before 19xx (I don’t remember the year. It was in the 1950s.)
I never heard that, I thought the concern about herd immunity was the time that it took to achieve it - while killing time, people would die. Or so that was my understanding.
For the general public, it has long been the case that people born before 1957 were assumed to have had measles and not need vaccination against measles. For those born later, known / documented measles infection is also considered evidence of immunity.
Of course, there are special cases (e.g. those in high-exposure-risk professions who get titers to check, or older people who are pretty sure they did not have measles). For @DramaMama2021 's parents, they may want to see if they can recall if they had measles in childhood.
I certainly remember having measles. Miserable, mom closing the curtains so it was always dark. Yuk. And also most anything I wanted to eat, drink, watch, play with…guess my mom probably worried more than I did.
Doesn’t seem like Florida is in worse shape than the other states with outbreaks. If you or your kids aren’t vaccinated, don’t go to Florida. Or get vaccinated! Some states have more people migrating in who aren’t vaccinated and those are going to be Florida, California, Texas, and then after transfers, the cities of Denver, Chicago, NYC.
When I adopted my daughter, I didn’t take her places until she was vaccinated (she had all vaccinations but her doctor didn’t think they were guaranteed to have been refrigerated properly).
Sad to agree. Also disturbing to realize that there are now places in the U.S. where citizens must be cautious to travel to because of poor vaccination rates - wonder when there will have to be gov’t travel alerts on which shots you’ll need to travel safely to certain states… Completely preventable.
There were always those areas. Places like Boulder CO; Marin and Orange Counties California; Williamsburg NYC; Amish farm towns had much lower vaccination rates than many other parts of the country or even their states because of religious beliefs or ‘it causes Autism’ beliefs or even just ‘I don’t want to’ attitudes. We have to include areas with new migrants who may or may not be vaccinated quickly, and who want their kids to start school asap.
I knew people who adopted from China and chose not to vaccinate, or at least not to vaccinate right away. One woman adopted two kids and had to get the oldest one vaccinated or they wouldn’t have allowed her to adopt again, but the second child had autism and she refused to get him vaccinated. Continued to travel to Mexico, Canada and other places. He alone could have infected a plane full of people, and airport, a shopping mall. Another person wanted to do every shot one at a time - not the MMR but the M and then the M and then the R. We all told her impossible as her child would be getting a shot every week for a year. Oh no no, she would do it her way. Well, that lasted about a month and she went to the regular schedule.
And my daughter, who got all the vaccinations asap still got REALLY sick when she got sick her first 4-5 years. She had no natural immunities to good ol’ USA germs.
But I don’t think Florida is any worse than other places, and IMO better than some we’ve lived in. In Orange Cty CA, we lived blocks from the Sears clinic that didn’t require its patients to be vaccinated.
Pushing back on the idea that there were always these areas. This is a relatively recent phenomenon - just the past 25 years or so since vaccines came into wide use.
Before that, vaccine rates were pretty uniformly high - we wouldn’t have been able to eradicate small pox otherwise.
Marin is no longer the poster-child: 2% of Kindergarten’s below 90% vaxxed. Orange County is 5%, lower than LA & SF counties. In other words, Marin and The OC have a higher vax rate than LA or SF. (Not surprising since undocumented migrants are not required to vax to attend school.). The Sears clinic was shut down by the State when the State changed the law to eliminate religious exemptions. The non-vaxxers are now in the rural northern counties.
