At least 49 cases have been confirmed. Health officials — who are scrambling to get a handle on the vaccine-preventable outbreak — suspect 200 to 300 people may be infected.

Summary

A measles outbreak in rural West Texas has surged to 49 confirmed cases, mostly among unvaccinated school-age children, with officials suspecting hundreds more unreported infections.

The outbreak is centered in Gaines County, home to a large Mennonite population with low vaccination rates. Despite CDC support, Texas has not requested federal intervention.

The outbreak has now spread to Lubbock, raising wider public health concerns.

Experts warn it could persist for months without increased vaccination efforts, but skepticism toward vaccines remains a significant barrier.

  • EtterraEnglish
    17·
    5 days ago

    Good thing everyone I know is vaccinated.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
      101·
      5 days ago

      Vaccines aren’t anywhere near 100% effective, they rely on herd immunity which means enough people have to have the vaccine so the disease can’t get a foothold and goes extinct.

      • Treczoks@lemmy.world
        5·
        5 days ago

        While they might not be 100% effective, but 99% or even 90% are good enough to stop a disease from getting a problem.

      • serenissi@lemmy.world
        1·
        4 days ago

        Some vaccines need to be 100% reliable like the tetanus one. The bacteria live in soil everywhere. Herd immunity isn’t going to do a thing there.

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          4 days ago

          Correct, but sometimes you have to distill information into one sentence for it to sink into people’s heads. It’s baffling to me that everyone didn’t learn the basic science of vaccines during the pandemic, but here we still are.

          The true and actionable message is that “fuck you, I got mine” is generally a useless and dangerous attitude towards almost every vaccine.