Measles? So on-brand for Florida’s descent into the 1950s. – Tampa Bay Times

Ooh, we love to regress around here. If there is a way to slip socially backward into the pages of an Archies Double Digest, Florida will sip happily from that malted milkshake.

For instance, the average Floridian might assume lately that they had inadvertently time-traveled and woken up in 1952. Saddle shoes! Oppenheimer! Vaccine-preventable communicable diseases!

Thats right. Today we are taking a break from fretting over the Jell-O molding of Florida education and pivoting to measles. Measles. This disease that most commonly harms children was eradicated in 2000. Yet, thanks to nationwide vaccine skepticism inflated during the COVID-19 crisis, the infection is making a dreadful comeback. Childhood immunization rates have hit a 10-year low.

Nine new measles cases have been reported in Broward County, followed by another Monday in Polk County cue cringe as measles creeps closer to Tampa Bay. Only two cases were reported in Florida last year, linked to international travel. As of this February, a total of 35 measles cases were reported nationwide. Thats too many instances of an illness with a vaccine introduced around the time Don Draper discovered meditation.

Now, I have not had measles; in the 1980s, my parents let a doctor stick me with a needle and fork over a lollipop. Thanks, Mom and Dad! But to recap, getting measles sounds miserable. Measles comes with a full-body rash; red, watery, swollen eyes; cold symptoms; fever; aches; pains and bumps inside the mouth. About one in five children with measles ends up in the hospital, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Patients can suffer brain swelling, long-term complications and death.

What to do? Well, lets lead with the official advice, not the Florida Vibes Advice:

The CDC urges vaccinations, of course. It also says school officials should keep unvaccinated children who have not had the disease home for three weeks. States do not have to heed this advice, though.

Enter Florida, where leaders are thirsty for any chance to challenge the federal government to a greaser brawl. Surgeon general Joseph Ladapo has no track record of being surgeon-general-y, dragging Floridians through the pandemic with unsubstantiated scientific theories and fringe rhetoric. As a noted vaccine skeptic deployed by chaos agent Gov. Ron DeSantis, Ladapos reaction to measles is no shocker.

Rather than encouraging the CDCs simple, life-saving measures, he sent a letter to parents at Manatee Bay Elementary, site of the outbreak. It is normally recommended to keep vulnerable kids out of school, he wrote. But in Florida, its up to parents to do whatever feels neato.

The message is clear time and time again: Parents, when it comes to public health, you are on your own. Our leaders are so inconsistently fetishistic about parental rights that they will confoundingly put children in harms way to win political clout. This state, with its roster of Riverdale High misfits, is never going to lead with clear and accurate control.

Please, if at all possible, get your kids vaccinated. Get yourself vaccinated. Seek medical advice from doctors, not websites with animated gifs. Keep your sick kids home. Time away from the classroom is inconvenient, yes, but a few weeks of remote learning is not the same as the never-ending social isolation of the pandemic.

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I fear in 2024 we have become spoiled. Americans have lived without so many diseases for so long that we have no context for the holy mess they stand to create. Lets interrogate our privilege as a developed nation and once again embrace medical advancements. Lets keep iron lungs out of style. Lets cancel whooping cough. Polio is a no-lio. Diphtheria, get out of here-ia! And, uh, something called Hib? Does anyone remember Hib? No, didnt think so. Can we keep it that way?

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Measles? So on-brand for Florida's descent into the 1950s. - Tampa Bay Times