There were measles outbreaks in Texas and Georgia recently.
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Note that measles infection can result in loss of immunity against other viruses that one has previously been infected with or vaccinated against, due to the virus attacking B-cells: https://www.science.org/content/article/how-measles-causes-body-forget-past-infections-other-microbes
If you were vaccinated against measles in the early years of measles vaccine, you may have had a less effective type of vaccine and may want to get a booster.
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I seem to recall a measles outbreak in the mid-80s. It was when I was in college/right before spring break. Seems like they did boosters or something on our campus. Others as well. Worried about spread because of students traveling for spring break. I may not be remembering that correctly .
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Well, yes. When lots of kids don’t get vaccinated, a lot of them are going to catch things.
My DiL is getting a new set of varicella vax’s bc her doctor checked her titer and thought it much too low for someone living with an immunosuppressed person (our son became ill before finishing his chicken pox vax series, and now can’t have live vaccines). Because when people choose to be a vector of infection, it’s not just themselves they endanger.
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I can’t see anything like this without thinking of a cousin I never got to know. He died of measles when I was a toddler ( pre measles vaccine). You better believe my family believes in vaccines!
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I got that vaccine, and as a result, I had a very very mild case when I was around 12. I had a low grade fever for one day, then a few days with the rash but no other symptoms.
When I got back to the USA for grad school, I got the MMR, and have been keeping up with my other vaccines as well.
[Rant]
The spread of anti-vaxx misinformation by people who are either just idiots or are being actively malicious, and the fact that social media like FB or Twitter allow themselves to become vectors for the spread of this misinformation, means that we will see more of these outbreaks of measles and of other preventable diseases like mumps, whooping cough, TB, polio, and others. I fully expect that the same people who spread the anti-vaxx misinformation will claim that either these outbreaks are not because kids are not getting vaccinated, or, worse, will claim that these outbreaks are not happening, and FB will allow this misinformation to be spread as well.
My worse fear is that anti-vaxxers have been able to force school districts and other vulnerable populations to expose themselves to unvaccinated and potentially sick kids and adults.
Anti-vaxxers are not only stupid, they are actively evil. Anti-vaxxer “influencers” should be sued for everything that they have.
The claim that “vaccines cause autism” should be classified as hate speech against parents who have their kids vaccinated.
Yes, antivaxxers don’t actually care about their kids. If a person loves their kids, and gets conflicting messages about whether a medical procedure is safe, they would put a lot of effort into finding out which information is reliable, and which is being churned out by a half wit or a charlatan. Anti-vaxxers are too lazy to do that, and too arrogant to admit that they don’t understand some things, and should rely on experts.
Also, why are there “religious exemptions” for vaccinations? It’s like have “religious exemptions” for DUI or pooping into the public water system - “my religion requires that I slam back a quarter of a bottle of gin every Friday evening, and then drive at least 50 miles on the Interstate, so laws against DWI violate my civil rights”.
[/Rant]
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You may want to get revaccinated for any viruses for which you had infection or vaccination before you had measles, since measles may have erased any immunity you had for those other viruses.
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It was a very light case, and there was no evidence of immunity amnesia (no more infections than before, no more colds or other viruses, etc), and immunity generally recovers after a while. It has been almost 50 years. I have, though, gotten MMR, tetanus, polio, smallpox, and other ones, since that time.
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Measles is extremely contagious. I read recently that if an infected person sneezes in an elevator, an hour later there is still a big risk of contagion.
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This is nothing new. There have been spikes in measles cases here and there since the 2010’s. I remember the one that hit Disneyland back around 2014-2015.
What I find interesting is the pendulum swing in non-vaxxers. Back in the early 2000s, it was more the crunchy, natural-lifestyle type parents who drove the antivax movement. Now it seems it’s those who only became antivax when the Covid vaccine came out.
Unfortunately it seems like we can never all be on the same page at the same time when it comes to these issues. If we were, these types of outbreaks would happen much less frequently, if at all.
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Yes, Marin County was known as a hotbed of anti-vaccine types. But then COVID-19 hit, and Marin County had one of the highest rates of COVID-19 vaccination in the state. Perhaps seeing friends and neighbors suffer or die changed their minds about vaccines.
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Yep. I worked in a hospital during the height of COVID and I still get people telling me it was no big deal. 
It seems it’s always the ones who didn’t experience it firsthand who were able to stay home who have the most to say about it to me.
I also worked in the ER during the big H1N1 outbreak in 2009 and back then it seemed no one hesitated to get the vaccine. I remember taking my kids to the local HS gym to get theirs and it seemed like the whole community was there. I’m not sure how and why things changed so much over the years.
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Just got my pneumonia shot today. 
This newest compound protects against 21 strains.
I’m now caught up - Covid and flu in the late fall, followed by tdap and RSV. Had the shingles shots a couple of years ago.
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Most recent measles outbreaks in NYC and environs were believed to originate within ultra-Orthodox (Hassidic) Jewish communities where many religious leaders forbade immunization. These communities also fared poorly in the pandemic afaik.
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It wasn’t “a pendulum”, it was a fairly quick change that happened during COVID, and was driven by the attitudes towards COVID and COVID vaccines. Had COVID not hit, the anti-vaxx movement would still be very similar to the way it was for the previous few decades.
There is actually a couple of articles by a research team which was working on anti-vaxx discourse on Twitter and YouTube just before the pandemic started. I think that they started collecting data in November or December 2019, and because of the pandemic, they continued collecting data until the vaccines started rolling out. So they have actual evidence of the change in the anti-vaxx movement, and of the reasons for that change.
Here is one of their articles:
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I had a severe case of measles as an infant. My mom never tired of telling me how I sobbed/screamed for 24 hours straight until the point that she began to do the same. Within a few months, I also got meningitis and was hospitalized. My Dad, in the USAF, was flown home, clueless as to the reason why, from his overseas assignment, because both my brother and I had it, and it was felt that one or both of us wouldn’t make it.
I wonder if my measles made me more susceptible to the second infection. When I entered nursing school, I was required to get a lot of vaccines or prove that I had already had the disease. I had no records, so I just got the vaccines because it was easier than trying to prove immunity. Maybe that turned out to be a good thing.
I am very pro-vaccine now. I consider it such a blessing that we have them, and I have zero respect for the anti-vaccine movement.
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Sadly, anti-vaxxers don’t believe either one of these things to be true. My sense is that since Covid, there would be a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of anti-vaxxers and those who are more broadly anti-science.
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(Apologies if this is not allowed…)
I think the vaccine issue gained speed when downplaying COVIDbecame a litmus test for one party. That became a general dismissal of all vaccines and a requirement for staying in the party.
I think it’s very sad that people with legislative power feel unsafe in standing on the side of settled science. For them, and for all of us.
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Maybe it’s time this thread is moved to the politics forum?
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Keeping people protected from diseases shouldn’t be political. But here we are.
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