A 2018 California Measles Outbreak
Erin Allday at The San Francisco Chronicle:
A small measles outbreak in the Bay Area last year spread almost entirely among families who had chosen not to vaccinate their children — including two young boys whose mother lied to public health investigators about their immunization status — underscoring the gaps that remain in vaccination coverage in California, according to a report published Friday.
Only seven people were infected in the outbreak that started in Santa Clara County. One likely reason it was so contained is that vaccination rates statewide have been high ever since a 2016 law ended most options for families to opt out of immunizing children, public health authorities said.
But the cases also demonstrate that with a disease as highly infectious as measles, even small clusters of unvaccinated people can put communities at risk. And it’s alarming, infectious disease experts said, that some parents are so attached to anti-vaccination beliefs that they would undermine a public health investigation.
Also note that some antivax California parents have been getting questionable medical exemptions for their children.
