One of the fun things about an age of anti-intellectualism is that no matter how much the fools and idiots who like leading them refuse to admit it, the truth invariably wins because it can not be outwitted by deliberate stupidity.
So it goes with the truth and its current bout with paranoid middle-aged predominantly white suburban women, and proudly ignorant freedom loving mostly gun-toting white men. The truth is that vaccines work and it's more pleasant to be a bit nauseous for a few days because of a preparatory reaction than to actually have a disease and die from it. Being dead is sub-optimal unless you have an eternal insurance plan and even then, you won't be here to tell us how it went.
There is currently a Measles outbreak in Texas. In any other first world country this would be seen as a massive failure of public health policy but in the United States, it is apparently acceptable and excusable. As Measles is a preventable disease, this would be far far far more unlikely in Australia as the Department of Health at both Federal and State level, will have taken adequate measures prevent it.
As at the time of writing this, there are 124 reported cases, though given that the CDC in the United States is currently being white anted by DOGE, that figure can not be trusted. There have also been 4 deaths due to measles, which again due to the fact that the CDC is currently being white anted, that figure will almost certainly have gone up.
The Health And Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. has called this outbreak as "common", even though the last mass outbreak in the United States happened more than a decade ago. He is a well known vaccine denier, and in this case should absolutely not be listened to. If measles does become common in the United States, it will be directly because people like him are deliberately stupid fools and those responsibility for future deaths should be placed firmly on his shoulders.
The truth is that measles is highly contagious. I won't claim to know anything about the mechanism of transmission but the maths for it works pretty much the same as most time-generation series calculations; so I can at least work through the numbers. Any Reproduction Index (R0) value of less than 1, and an outbreak will naturally fizzle out. Anything R0 between 1 and 2, and an outbreak will be maintained. Anything above 2 and you have something similar to an exponential type curve of reproduction and infection. Most measles outbreaks have an R0 of between 12 and 18.
Assuming that you are a sensible parent, then your child will usually get two vaccine shots which are different from each other for maximum efficacy. Children between the ages of 4 and 6 who have had both shots, have a protection rate of +99.9999%.
Adults who were born before 1957 in Australia, are assumed to have existing immunity; because they will more than likely have had measles and survived. The children who were born before 1957 and didn't survive, are not around to complain like a stupid fool.
If you were born between about 1957 and 1970, then getting a booster shot is probably a good idea, as the vaccine used in Australia back then utilised an inactive form of the Morbillivirus hominis virus; and may not be as effective as second generation vaccines.
Everyone born after 1970 in Australia is good to go. Due to public health measures in Australia being excellent, the Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) vaccine has been part of the standard program.
If you were born outside of Australia and especially in the United States, where public health measures are not as good, then getting a booster shot is not the worst idea in the world.
If you are unsure, then you can get what is known as a 'measles titer test'; which is a blood test that checks for antibodies in the blood to determine if someone is immune to measles. It is also known as a Rubeola titer test.
The difference between the United States in this respect is that because the United States is staunchly stupid and actively foolish when it comes to the health its own citizens, it is generally cheaper for Americans to just get an MMR booster vaccine that it is to get bloods drawn and to get their titers tested.
One thing that is undeniable fact is that if you are afraid to either get your children vaccinated or refuse to because you choose to believe idiocy, that the Morbillivirus hominis virus absolutely doesn't care about what you believe and is capable of killing people. The death rate from measles in unvaccinated people is about 3 in 1,000 people; so if you're willing to roll that particular dice knowing full well that the death rate from measles is about 3 in 10,000,000,000 people, then that's fine. You are allowed to be a stupid dead fool with stupid dead children.
