Thanks to widespread vaccination, measles had been considered “eliminated” as a continually transmitting illness in the United States since 2000 – but not anymore.

An independent commission of experts that reports to the director of the Pan American Health Organization determined that the US no longer qualified as having eliminated measles, a source close to the process told CNN on Friday. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The decision was widely expected after years of falling vaccination levels and surging case counts, but it’s still a black mark on the nation’s public health policy.

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[–] 17 points 5 hours ago (5 children)

We are so fucking stupid. Anyivaxers need to be sent to an island and closed off so they can just mutate in isolation.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

    Could antivaxxers on an isolated island actually develop better immune system because of heavier natural selection pressure?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 child)

    No. The population would be too small and they'd die too fast. If you've ever played Plague Inc., you know that to win as a disease, you want to strike a balance between deadliness, incubation time, and infectiousness.

    Ebola is really bad because it's very infectious, very deadly, and isn't immediately symptomatic. But, since it kills the host so effectively, tramission is limited.

    COVID was a global pandemic because it had a good incubation time, was fairly infectious, and didn't debilitate the host.

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