Measles: How Worried Should We Be?

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus. Today on the show, the insanely weird virus that is measles. For more than twenty years, The US had stopped the ongoing spread of measles. Yeah. I mean, we declared it eliminated. This is Grace Wade, health reporter at New Scientist magazine. That's the thing. The measles used to be this perfect example of the power of medicine and, like, the power of vaccines. And it was always, like, heralded as this great example. And now we're just watching it, like, crumble before our eyes. On the January 20, Texas reported a case of measles, and then another one, and another one. The country's deadly measles outbreak is getting worse, spreading at an alarming rate in Texas. Measles cases connected to connected to the outbreak in Texas have officially passed five hundred confirmed cases. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. And now, there are infections all over the country. There's a whole rash of cases in more than 20 states. Some of those are just isolated cases. But in other states, the disease is spreading. And so that's concerning, right? Because you're seeing this outbreak spread to multiple states and then from there take off. In some cases, people who are in Texas have then spread the virus to other states, but not always. Grace said that the outbreak in Michigan started when someone got infected on a trip to Ontario, Canada, where they're currently experiencing a measles outbreak of their own. In The US, at least eight hundred people have had measles. That's according to the CDC. The vast majority of those, ninety six percent, are unvaccinated, or we don't know their vaccination status. Eight hundred cases. How many hospitalized? How many dead? Eighty five people have been hospitalized. Two people have tragically died, from measles. They were both unvaccinated children. And, there was also one other potential death related to measles. It's still under investigation. And now, online, there's all these people talking about measles and vaccines. Oh, would you look at that? After a second child has died of measles, are Some say this is bad because measles is so contagious, while others say that measles isn't such a big deal. Why are we freaking out here? There's viral videos where people point out, didn't everyone just get measles back in the day? You just get a rash, a red rash. They make it seem like it's such a scary thing. Yeah. It wasn't no big deal. And, you know, the Brady Bunch kids were fine. Boy, this is the life, isn't it? Yeah. If you have to get sick, you sure can't beat the measles. Meanwhile, the head of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, is saying that part of what's causing this current outbreak is that the vaccine loses its effectiveness over time. The vaccine wanes. The vaccines wane about four point eight percent per year. So, you know, that that …