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Measles outbreak in North Dakota prompts local health officials to quarantine unvaccinated schoolchildren
CNN ^ | 5/9/25 | Deidre McPhillips

Posted on 05/10/2025 4:32:31 PM PDT by CFW

Measles cases continue to accumulate in the United States in what is already the second-worst year since the disease was declared eliminated a quarter-century ago. Now, a recent outbreak in one North Dakota county has led local health officials to quarantine nearly 200 unvaccinated students.

North Dakota has reported nine measles cases this year, and a recent outbreak among schoolchildren in Williams County in the northwest part of the state has led local health officials to enforce a law that requires unvaccinated students to quarantine for 21 days after exposure to someone who has the virus. The move was taken by local public health officers in the Upper Missouri District Health Unit, and the state health department is assisting with mitigation efforts.

On Tuesday, families of 188 unvaccinated students in the Williston Basin School District No. 7 received a letter informing them that their children would need to quarantine for three weeks.

About two weeks earlier, district nurse coordinator Lynn Douglas had sent a letter to all families in anticipation of an outbreak, preemptively outlining the quarantine procedure and highlighting the importance of prevention, including vaccination.

[snip]

“While even a small drop in immunization rates can lead to outbreaks, unvaccinated students are at significant risk of serious illness and complications from measles, which are highly contagious and preventable diseases,” she said. “WBSD #7 prioritizes student safety by taking measures to protect unvaccinated students and prevent the spread of illness to themselves, their families, and others and in order to do this, students must be excluded.”

(Excerpt) Read more at lite.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; US: North Dakota
KEYWORDS: children; measles; nd; quarantine
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When my sisters and I all caught measles in the late 60s, Mom treated our symptoms and the virus soon run its course. I recall that all our friends and family members' children were also suffering at the same time.

Measles was no big deal. No one was quarantined and no one panicked. Also, no one died. Why the panic now? Also, if it is such a concern, why demand open borders so that multitudes of un-vaccinated illegal aliens can cross over into our country risking the herd immunity we've cultivated over the decades?

1 posted on 05/10/2025 4:32:31 PM PDT by CFW
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To: CFW

We used to expose our kids on purpose when classmates had measles so they would have the disease when they were young and at a relatively convenient time.


2 posted on 05/10/2025 4:42:30 PM PDT by JayGalt (Fight! Fight! Fight!)
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To: CFW

We used to quarantine the sick, not the healthy. Back before the Wuhan Flu.


3 posted on 05/10/2025 4:46:04 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Time to dump out the Treasury drawer and throw out all the junk that is wasting our money.)
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To: All

Must be new kind of measles. Everyone got them when I was a kid and I don’t remember anyone being nervous about it. The problem was getting them later in life when you were old


4 posted on 05/10/2025 4:46:52 PM PDT by escapefromboston (Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.)
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To: CFW

2025 measles data from the CDC:

https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html

Total cases

1001

Age
Under 5 years: 299 (30%)
5-19 years: 376 (38%)
20+ years: 311 (31%)
Age unknown: 15 (1%)
Vaccination Status
Unvaccinated or Unknown: 96%
One MMR dose: 2%
Two MMR doses: 2%
………..
U.S. Hospitalizations in 2025

13%

13% of cases hospitalized (126 of 1001).

Percent of Age Group Hospitalized
Under 5 years: 23% (69 of 299)
5-19 years: 9% (32 of 376)
20+ years: 7% (23 of 311)
Age unknown: 13% (2 of 15)
……………
U.S. Deaths in 2025

3

There have been 3 confirmed deaths from measles.


5 posted on 05/10/2025 4:49:12 PM PDT by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable anima)
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To: VanShuyten

“There have been 3 confirmed deaths from measles.”


From what I understand, two of those three cases were not “from” measles, but “with” measles. The two children that died had other serious medical conditions. I haven’t heard any details concerning the third death.


6 posted on 05/10/2025 4:53:17 PM PDT by CFW
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To: CFW

Quarantining the healthy is a medical practice invented only five years ago.


7 posted on 05/10/2025 5:03:19 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: CFW

Because some have died. Are you sure nobody in the United States died of measles in the 60’s at all? Sounds hard to believe.


8 posted on 05/10/2025 5:12:55 PM PDT by napscoordinator (DeSantis is a beast! Florida is the freest state in the country! )
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To: CFW

One of the dangers is pregnant women in 1st trimester, it can harm or it kill baby.


9 posted on 05/10/2025 5:15:27 PM PDT by Raycpa
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To: CFW
Better to isolate undocumented children to avoid outbreaks.
10 posted on 05/10/2025 5:16:35 PM PDT by grobdriver (The CDC can KMA!)
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To: VanShuyten

We may have doctors who no longer know how to treat complications from measles.


11 posted on 05/10/2025 5:17:24 PM PDT by Raycpa
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To: CFW

CNN - No thanks. Conservatives do not patronize fake news.


12 posted on 05/10/2025 5:23:20 PM PDT by Labyrinthos
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To: CFW

Measle Source? Illegals? And why quarantine those who aren’t sick? Some backwards logic going on in North Dakota, land of my father.


13 posted on 05/10/2025 5:23:51 PM PDT by Tudorfly (All things are possible within the will of God.)
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To: CFW
Measles was no big deal. No one was quarantined and no one panicked. Also, no one died.

At its peak, over a thousand people a year died from measles in the U.S. I missed four weeks of school with the measles.

14 posted on 05/10/2025 5:55:35 PM PDT by Engraved-on-His-hands
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To: CFW

I guess no more measles parties allowed?


15 posted on 05/10/2025 6:30:16 PM PDT by Bob434 (Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana)
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To: JayGalt

“ We used to expose our kids on purpose when classmates had measles so they would have the disease when they were young and at a relatively convenient time.”
***********************************

Measles parties.👏👏


16 posted on 05/10/2025 6:33:58 PM PDT by House Atreides (I’m now ULTRA-MAGA-PRO-MAX)
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To: Raycpa

It’s also dangerous for the pregnant woman herself.

When I was a toddler, our mothers had me and my little girl friends go play with a girl who had measles so we would catch it and be immune and not have to worry when we grew up and became mothers-to-be. Boys were not included.

Soon after, the measles vaccine came out. Oh well, all that for nothing. But our mothers meant well.


17 posted on 05/10/2025 6:38:25 PM PDT by CatHerd (Whoever said "all's fair in love and war" probably never participated in either.)
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To: Engraved-on-His-hands

I didn’t mean no one at all died. I meant that none of us or our friends died of measles. Our parents treated measles as a normal part of childhood.


18 posted on 05/10/2025 6:57:36 PM PDT by CFW
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To: CFW

The new normal... quarantine the unvaccinated and the well.


19 posted on 05/10/2025 7:09:20 PM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2025... RETURN OF THE JEDI...)
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To: CFW
>Why the panic now?

Those at risk were different then. It's so contagious that it was rare to not have had it during childhood. When the vaccines came out nearly everyone got them and within a decade or so the vaccines were working well (IIRC I got 2 or 3 iterations of measles vaccines when the initial ones didn't work so well). Then it became rare to not have had either the vaccine or the disease. The main exceptions were really little kids, too young for the vaccine to take. I'm old enough to remember hearing about measles/chicken pox/etc. parties but not old enough to remember the fine print. I bet the parties were for 3 years+ age, not for 3 month olds.

Healthy kids, post-infancy, have the strongest and fastest immune systems, designed for learning to fight off numerous invaders and develop specific immunity in case of re-exposure later in life. They could handle strong infections most of the time. Even smallpox, in its variola major form, only killed 30% of non-little kids (the less severe v. minor arose in US in 1800s and killed about 2%). The real little ones weren't running around playing with every kid in town. It was practical to keep them away from sick kids. That avoidance and herd immunity—from having most of the population immune so the most infective human disease couldn't find many targets to prolong outbreaks— was the protection for the little ones. But when smallpox struck populations where no one was immune history records many cases of 60% or even 90% fatality over the whole population. Easter Island and the Hawaiian islands were notable cases. From the Spanish invasion of Aztecs and Incas there were huge epidemics of novel European diseases within the native American population, 2/3 or more of whom died off, leaving the invading Spanish the majority population. Smallpox was the biggest killer in that plague, but measles was believed to be a strong second. Healthy 'indians' who's only weakness was being adults rather than kids, were dropping like flies.

Now, due to years of anti-measles vax propaganda we have many non-immune but otherwise healthy adults, with risk levels similar to the millions of Mexicans who died in Cortes's measles epidemic. Moreover, we have an historically unprecedented number of immunocompromised folks, whom historically would have died years earlier from advanced age, AIDS, cancers, lack of organ transplants or various now treatable autoimmune diseases, but now live with weaker systems than Cortes's victims. They were theorized to be at high risk from Covid, but that virus flopped. The politicians were more dangerous than it. History says that IF you get measles as a routine childhood disease, its risk is small, albeit greater than mumps, rubella and chicken pox. But IF you get it NOT as a routine childhood disease, it often is significant.

When I graduated med school 40 years ago virtually no one (outside shysters) questioned the safety of the then routine childhood vaccinations: Mumps, Measles and Rubella, Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis (whooping cough) and polio with two exceptions. Around my graduation there was a blip of measles cases in those who'd gotten the 1st iteration of its vaccine and, who unlike me, hadn't subsequently received the new ones. Otherwise their efficacy was fine. We knew there were more side effects to Pertussis than all the rest. That version of its vaccine has since been replaced by a much safer one. And we knew the live oral version of the polio vaccine carried a very small risk of causing real polio, which the inactivated polio shot version lacked. But we'd learned that the shot alone wasn't good enough to eradicate polio and with the oral vaccine we'd successfully eradicated it from the entire western hemisphere, at which time those in eradicated areas switched to just the safe shot version for maintenance. Decades of experience fighting polio shows we still need the oral vaccines in some areas, where but for noncompliant anti-western idiots it would already be eradicated. But even so 2 of the original 3 wild strains of polio are extinct; the wild 3rd is down to 1-2 dozen cases in Afghanistan/Pakistan border area. Most of the 'polio' cases now are alas from the oral vaccine strains, but at much lower rates than the natural disease baseline. 2/3 of the oral vaccine strain polios are virtually eradicated and they have had an improved version of the 3rd vaccine strain swapped in which should greatly shrink that problem. Experience shows we couldn't have gotten this far without the orals and that getting to the finish line of ending the orals is possible. The only thing really keeping polio afloat is human stubbornness and stupidity. It could and should have been eradicated and all vaccination ended by now absent that.

I realize there have been a slew of additional vaccines added since my med school and I can't claim to be up to speed on the intricacies of all of them. If RFK wants to review the expanded list perhaps there are some that either don't make sense or only make sense for certain risk groups. The best argument for vaccination is when it can lead to eradication of the disease; the greatest possible gain and side effects limited by the time required to accomplish that. That is only possible for a limited number of infections. Smallpox was the prototype success, polio was supposed to be the 2nd but instead the 2nd success was Rinderpest (Dutch for Cattle Plague), the bovine infecting parent of human measles and canine distemper. Having read up some on Rinderpest its a damned impressive disease of many domestic and wild animals, often with nearly 100% mortality. I understand why they worked to eradicate it, although I'm not sure how they managed to do it.

Vaccines for non-eradicable diseases are always a lower cost/benefit ratio. I do know that personally I'm glad I got 2/3 of my HepB vaccination shots in before I first had to draw blood on a patient with HepB. And I know the chicken pox vaccine was marketed as being cost effective for families: with 2 working parents one would have to be off work to care for the itchy, rash, usually mildly sick kid. Schools and day cares wouldn't take them. As your child was very likely to get it sometime otherwise, the cost of the shot was less than the lost parental income. And not all cases were mild—my sister's wasn't though she got thru it ok—there always were a few deaths. And those numbers are notably less since chickenpox vaccination became routine.

20 posted on 05/10/2025 7:27:57 PM PDT by JohnBovenmyer (MAGA urge to purge the dirge of O'Biden's scourge and splurge)
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