At least eight people have been diagnosed with measles in an outbreak that started last month in the Philadelphia area. The most recent two cases were confirmed on Monday.
The outbreak began after a child who’d recently spent time in another country was admitted to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) with an infection, which was subsequently identified as measles. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health considers the case to be “imported” but did not say from where.
The disease then spread to three other people at CHOP, two of whom were already hospitalized there for other reasons.
Two of those infected at the hospital were a parent and child. The child had not been vaccinated and the parent was offered medication usually given to unvaccinated people that can prevent infection after exposure to measles, but refused it, the Philadelphia Inquirer first reported.
Despite quarantine instructions, the child was sent to day care on Dec. 20 and 21, the health department said.
Isn’t this criminal negligence?
Being told by a medical professional to quarantine and wantonly ignoring it is a lot like your mechanic telling you not to drive a car and you doing it anyway.
I don’t see why the family shouldn’t be held to account for every single infection they started by sending their kid to day care.
Except who will arrest them? The cops won’t enforce mask or quarantine mandates. COVID fucked all that up.
Just say that the kid had a mental breakdown. The cops will come in pronto and shoot the dog.
They’ll bring about 10 to 20 more people if you say he has marijuana or mushrooms too!
Covid didn’t fuck it up. Stupid conservatives did that.
If the government truly wants to enforce a quarantine, they can. Remember when the Ebola scare was a thing? I know someone who was caught up in that; They were required to do thrice daily temperature checks, and the CDC would randomly call a landline they set up, around ten times a day. On those calls, they had to report any potential symptoms for every single person in the household. The CDC made it very clear that if they didn’t answer the phone, the feds were coming inside with hazmat gear to verify they hadn’t snuck out. It was basically house arrest without the ankle monitors.
They had to have a very awkward conversation with their boss about it, because they were working as a lowly retail worker at the time. It was basically “hey uhh… You’ve seen the Ebola stuff in the news right? Yeah, I won’t be able to come in for a little while, because the feds say I’ll be arrested if I leave my house.”
Its tempting to rail against these parents but for the daycare part specifically let us not forget that people in America don’t get free healthcare, and we dont get paid sick days. You take your kid to daycare not because you fucking want to, your American boss doesn’t give a shit about your problems, he needs you in right now or you’re looking for another way to feed your kids
True, but in this specific case,
The child had not been vaccinated and the parent was offered medication usually given to unvaccinated people that can prevent infection after exposure to measles, but refused it, the Philadelphia Inquirer first reported.
This parent strongly deserves a good railing against.
…fuck that is pretty hard to defend
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I’d imagine a lot of that goes out the window when you’re threatening the lives of children…
HIPPA has some exceptions with regards to issues of public health, including one that explicitly requires the disclosure of non-personal details regarding communicable disease exposure that threatens the public at large.
That’s a good point, I haven’t worked a jobs like that for a long time. It is easy to overlook.
Will the family of the child face any consequences? I’d be very angry if my son was infected and they knew all along. Like looking for revenge angry!
At the very least CPS better be involved. I would definitely hope they take your child away if you’d risk your health, the child’s health, and the health of other children like that.
Yup, they’ll get to run for Congress, probably.
Well they are now know as the unhygienic dirty family with the smelly kid.
The part where the parent refused medication that can prevent infection is awful too. Can you imagine being so against medicine that you both risk your child’s life and risk leaving your child without a parent?
The disease then spread to three other people at CHOP, two of whom were already hospitalized there for other reasons.
Two of those infected at the hospital were a parent and child. The child had not been vaccinated and the parent was offered medication usually given to unvaccinated people that can prevent infection after exposure to measles, but refused it, the Philadelphia Inquirer first reported.
Despite quarantine instructions, the child was sent to day care on Dec. 20 and 21, the health department said.v
It’s shocking how far backwards we’ve gone with respect to basic science… When I was a kid, vaccines were a given. Nobody ever batted an eye.
Fuck Andrew Wakefield.
They should arrest the parents for negligence at this point. If any of the kids die they should get man slaughter charges.
Agreed. They should be charged. Adults and unborn fetuses have more rights than children do. A woman can miscarry and get charged with abuse of a corpse, if I drink and drive and kill someone I go to jail but if I choose not to vaccinate my child and the child dies I get a pass?
I agree but these assholes went beyond that and sent their sick kid with measles to daycare when they were explicitly told to quarantine. Like what the absolute fuck. It’s beyond words how selfish and disgusting their actions are.
I don’t see how this already doesn’t amount to criminal negligence.
Even if no one dies, anyone financially harmed by their actions, be it the daycare or families of potentially exposed children should be able to sue this moron for their losses. Freedom of choice isn’t freedom from consequence
There are legitimate medical conditions where you’re not supposed to give the vaccine, some temporarily, some permanently. Given that the kid was a patient at CHoP, I’m inclined the give them the benefit of the doubt. I’m not excusing the parent for not getting the medication, nor for sending the kid to daycare, but I’m going to give the kid the benefit of the doubt on receiving the vaccine. [I suspect I’m wrong to do so, but am doing so nonetheless.]
Sending a child with a highly infectious disease that is as dangerous and potentially deadly as measles into a day care should be held accountable. This is reckless endangerment of other peoples’ lives.
The parents and the child were unvaccinated and the parents refused medication. I’d hazard a guess that they’re on that anti-vax esoteric shit.
Hopefully DCFS can investigate them then. They are endangering not just the lives of their own child but others too. I would be livid if I was a parent and these idiots got my kid sick.
Agreed. It would be nice if people weren’t so pressured to go to work for money that they could take care of children rather than feeling like you need to abandon them for a job. I’m not saying they did this. But over 3/4 of my sick days last year was to take of my kid. And when I had COVID, I was out and the statutes to pay me were gone.
This is why it’s very important to think fiscally when deciding to have a baby. Those things are damn pricy!
It’s also very important to vote carefully before deciding to have a baby. In most 1st world countries, you get a few family responsibilities leave days a year, that an employer cannot deny.
Under law in those countries, you are a parent first and an employee second. That comes with privileges and responsibilities.
The USA is not one of those countries.
Trying to understand how this is good advice…
If my votes don’t get the politicians I like into office don’t reproduce?
If I get pregnant move to a country that has better maternity benefits?
What I meant, is that if you plan to have kids, you may want to vote for politicians that will give your children the best future, even after they are born.
This is a very nuanced issue, and I won’t be able to explain my thoughts without someone whatabouting it.
And while you’re right, it is absolutely insane that we blame individuals for the exploitive nature of society.
Kids are expensive because businesses realized they could charge whatever for everything and then run ad campaigns about how bad of a parent you are for not buying their product or service. Simultaneously cutting every public, infrastructural component that used to support parents.
Poor Americans. I just can’t imagine having to deal with limited sick days. If I’m sick for more than six weeks in a row, I get a little less money, and then from my health insurance instead of my boss, but that’s the only limit that is.
I wish! But Merica
If any subsequent children die due to this outbreak, charge the parents that sent the sick child to daycare with murder.
…and apparently did not get the kid vaccinated and refused medication.
I don’t excuse the parent for refusing the medication for themselves, however since the kid was a patient at CHoP, it’s possible they have an illness that prevents them from getting the vaccine. I’m not excusing the parent, but there’s a case to be made for the kid.
If the parent refused medication for a disease that they were willing but unable to vaccinate the child against, that would be baffling. I can’t feasibly believe that this isn’t a belligerent, poorly informed parent being a reckless arsehole.
Fuck. If they were immunocompromised to begin with, the parents should also be arrested for endangering their child, after they’re charged with murder for any kids that died via their reckless actions.
Or charge them with reckless endangerment now and tack on manslaughter charges later.
This should just generally be the case with vaccine refusal. If you refuse a vaccine and kill someone, that should be manslaughter
Unfortunately, it’s difficult to prove, but I generally agree. I’d love mandatory vaccinations, particularly at school, so idiot parents didn’t spread communicable diseases through their defenseless children. Especially since those parents got all theirs, so they are basically just endangering the lives of their kids and their immunocompomised neighbors.
Regardless of if anyone dies, they put others at risk by not quarantining. I don’t view this as any different than waving a gun around in public. They should be prosecuted for endangering others.
SSPE will fuck up your brain, you do not want measles spreading, get your vaccine if you’re due for it.
Unfortunately my wife cannot get the MMR vaccine. She essentially has to quarantine whenever there is a case in the area.
Why?
People with particularly weak immune systems or people on immunosuppressant drugs are advised not to get the MMR vaccine. There’s also some other edge case reasons.
Like me, she’s probably immunocompromised and/or on medication that causes it, so she can’t take live vaccines like MMR.
Which is why every single person in the U.S. who had an organ transplant is likely exasperated and infuriated by all the anti-vaxxers. Those people could literally kill them just by being in their proximity. And the anti-vaxxers tell people like that to just not go outside. Really.
My personal pet peeve is when people say things like “Well, they’re only hurting themselves,” or, “at least anti-vaxxers will kill themselves off.” That’s not how it works, and they are hurting everyone else more than they are hurting themselves.
Vaccination is not a personal choice, it’s a public health concern. It’s like someone saying it’s their personal choice to drive inebriated.
She had an organ transplant when she was young and is on immunosuppressants. The MMR is a live vaccine so she can’t take it.
Ooof, they got the expensive disease. Measles ruins your immune system, which takes ages to rebuild. In a British study studying religious antivaxxers vs vaccinated children, there was a much higher cost incurred per child for years, lol. They got a lot sicker a lot more often and needed more prescriptions because of what measles did to them.
Measles is crazy infectious too, it’s basically like the Flood pathogen from Halo. Getting it in your brain really bumps up chances of dying. Luckily the MMR vaccine gives you lifelong immunity, especially with two shots. So it’s mostly just an anti-vaxxer penalty these days. Too bad we almost eliminated it if not for them.
I actually had measles as a kid. My parents hadn’t gotten me vaccinated when they were supposed to not out of any antivaxx nonsense but regular old neglect.
Lemme tell you. Whoever catches it? Highly unlikely they’ll be antivaxx after that. Measles is probably the worst thing that ever happened to me and it’s the reason I was the first in line every time I was eligible for a covid vaccine. Me and the old ladies who remembered polio needed absolutely zero convincing.
its nit expensive if you just die 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 probably why that lady refused that $500,000antimeaseles injection.
mam we was here for our wekkly emergency insulin shot or sum sun crap
nurses have heard it all
People just don’t care about others anymore.
Nah, these selfish assholes have always been there. They’re just more visible with cameras and phones everywhere, and outrage-based news seeks these kinds of stories out.
We didn’t used to have measles popping up like this. This is a new phenomenon as of a couple years ago.
Yes, Trump emboldened them, but the point is they were always there and always self-centered assholes.
They just used to do the shittalking behind peoples’ backs.
Some people do. In fact, lots do.
Can we deport these deplorables yet? They’re uncivilized and a burden on the tax payer funded system.
Deport to where? Who would even take them?
The sun
Florida, then fence the entire state off and write it off as a total loss
Laughed aloud at this. Perfect in its simplicity.
Hahahahah The gulf coast?!?!
Well at this rate they are going to deport themselves to the land of the no longer living.
Not fast enough for my immunocompromised ass
Nobody wants disease-ridden anti-vaxxers, especially when they are shedding highly communicable diseases. Even arresting tuberculosis patients who defy court ordered treatment grosses police officers out, who have to deal with them.
Isn’t this why they colonized Australia? ;p
Who do these people work for? Their sick day policies bear a lot of the blame.
Maybe, but a lot of people go to work when slightly sick despite their company having a good policy.
It is true. You can still hear people on the news saying that we should have just ingnored the original strain of Covid and overrun the hospitals. Who gives a shit if a bunch of old people and immune compromised people died?
However, if you have a jackass working for you, you have to tell them to stay home and not take down the entire department.
It’s a bit of a cultural problem, isn’t it? In capitalist America, staying healthy is unAmerican.
Getting an MMR vaccine or two will save you loads of sick time. Sick time policies are shitty, yes. But this is a two shot series that is good for life. There’s very little excuse, especially if they can afford daycare.
I know this isn’t the point, but I’ll never get over that something as big and expensive as world class hospital could be built and they named it “chop”. No one said anything?
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Ahh acronyms. Can they put a Hasaaaaaaan in front?
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Yeah it sucks the family ignored the quarantine orders, I agree. Maybe they should be held liable for that.
What concerns me more, and what we should be talking about, is that the kid shows up at the hospital and two other patients contact the disease. At the hospital.
Being at a hospital should not be a threat to ones health. This along with other hospital borne illness and the insane amount of preventable deaths from medical negligence should concern all of us.
Measles is incredibly infectious, it’s why we eradicated it in the first place. Plus there are rules to follow in a hospital waiting room specifically designed to avoid that.
But it relies on people actually following rules, and we can assume someone that didn’t vaccinate or follow quarantine procedure is not a big fan of following “meaningless” rules. And meaningless to them is any rule they don’t understand. Unfortunately they actively try to understand as little as possible so no one can accuse them of being the very scariest word to them right now, “woke”.
The most infectious we’ve encountered and recorded.
Waiting rooms are the worst. I’m so glad we finally have the technology to allow us to check in from home and completely avoid waiting rooms.
It’s likely that this was probably an ER visit. That means they still would’ve had to wait in the ER waiting room in order of importance.
The ER staff make educated guesses of how important it is someone gets seen right now based on reported symptoms, reported recent travels, temperature, etc… Then people get seen in order from (for lack of a better phrase) most likely to die right now to least likely. Sometimes, the ER waiting room staff get it wrong, sometimes the patient isn’t entirely honest, and sometimes symptoms unexpectedly worsen or change while the patient is in the waiting room.
Another scenario: if this wasn’t an ER visit but instead a scheduled hospital visit, they likely still would’ve had to wait. They could probably fill out the required forms online, but they probably still would’ve had to wait until a doctor was actually available to see them, which could take a while. Doctors are almost never on time for appointments, mainly because they can only roughly estimate how long each appointment will actually take, and that’s arguably more true for hospitals than it is for your normal neighborhood doctor.
All that to say that, unfortunately, hospital waiting rooms typically aren’t very avoidable.
My local US Hospital has check in online for ER visits and then wait in car to be told to come in. You can’t always do that if you get brought in a ambulance but for a broken arm or leg you can check in online and wait in your car.
Ah, that’s different from what I was thinking of, which was filling out the paperwork ahead of time online and then going in for your appointment on the day of.
Not without a total overhaul of the intake process and a redesign of the necessary infrastructure, at least. Controlled access, keeping patients separate, delays to change the air and sanitize each room before a new patient is admitted, etcetera.
It sounds both practical and doable to me, but also expensive.
It sounds like it wasn’t obvious the first child had measles when they were admitted. The initial symptoms don’t include the rash. Measles is uncommon here, and it’s ludicrously infectious, well above flu or most other similar-appearing diseases.
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/symptoms/signs-symptoms.html
It also sounds like, as soon as they realized, the hospital tried to prevent the spread by giving medication to those exposed. This parent refused it.
Being at a hospital should not be a threat to ones health.
Being in a place where sick people are is a threat to your health. Sick people go to the hospital. What do you think the hospital is for?
I ask that you rethink this direction.
Hospitals, and people who are trying to save lives, should not be held responsible for the negligence of the ignorant few.
They spend a lot of time, money, and training on preventing Hospital Acquired ID, but they can only prevent so much. Sometimes it’s due to negligence, but they can’t restrain a child in a waiting room, they can’t stop 100℅ of spread. Without knowing the facts of the case (which they are surely reviewing), please don’t jump to blame.
I wouldn’t blame the hospitals themselves so much as the tradition of waiting room triage.
We shouldn’t be concentrating a bunch of potentially-contaigous inpatients together at all, but remodeling the infrastructure to design around a more sterile intake process would be expensive.
Agreed. And wouldn’t be considered expensive if there was a cap on profits.
Contrary to popular belief, the hospital is not a completely sanitary place.
Rather, it’s a place they try their absolute hardest to keep as sanitary as possible because they don’t want the healthy people (doctors, nurses, visitors, etc.) to get sick and because they don’t want the sick people (patients) to get even more sick.
Germs can unfortunately slip through the cracks even if every procedure is followed to the letter. There are times where they break procedure either on purpose or by accident (and doctors and hospitals can be put on the hook, legally, for those times), but this doesn’t seem to be one of those times given what we know right now.
The R naught (how many people a disease spreads to per infected person) on measles is insane; the average infected person can spread it to 12-18 people (source https://www.sciencenews.org/article/one-number-can-help-explain-why-measles-so-contagious)
Covid is like 1.2- 1.4 people per infected person. It left 1,000,000 Americans dead, which is about 416 Pearl Harbors or 333 9/11s.
The Spanish flu of 1918 killed multiple millions and, if memory serves, had an R naught of 2-3. Basically, our underfunded hospitals stand no chance against something so unbelievably infectious. Thank God we have a vaccine for it.
There’s a lot that could be better about my home country, such as the weather, but I am thankful for mandatory vaccinations. I know many of my stupid relatives who wouldn’t have gotten their vaccine if it wasn’t mandated.
Some things shouldn’t be left to the “wisdom of the masses”.
Good thing all parents vaccinate their kids. We’re fine.
