No, and yes.
Koplik spots are a distinctive and pathognomonic sign of measles, appearing 1-4 days before the characteristic measles rash23. These spots manifest as small, white lesions on the buccal mucosa (inner cheek), often described as resembling "grains of salt on a reddish background"14. They typically appear opposite the upper molars but can extend to the entire buccal mucosa2.
Small pox would like a word.
And West Africa, due to small time warlords.
osteopathic.org
www.cdc.gov
That is amazing irony, coming from you.
Oh hey buddy! Another insecure post! It's been a week or so.
Are you really this stupid? You can't even recognize the meaning of a word? I guess you are.
Fair enough. I would put measles into that same category given it's R naught contributing to it's morbidity and mortality. I used replicably in the sentence you bolded to point out that vaccination as a strategy to mitigate all viral disease hasn't proved universally successful. Overpopulation of humans in close proximity, globalization, the fast rate of mutation of viral disease, and a less healthy population kept alive artificially by modern medicine contribute to this challenge. I think some question the overarching strategy of immunization for everything even if intermittently successful (i.e. small pox, polio, measles, etc. - also unclear in some cases if temporary), primarily when we try to enforce mass immunization of less effective vaccines on healthy individuals for diseases without as severe morbidity/mortality. Herd immunity plays a roll, but is in direct confrontation with individual freedom. I recognize this is more so a philosophical discussion given our current contentious environment. Ultimately, I doubt many of us in this forum disagree significantly on this topic as we realize it does have some nuance.
I think people have forgotten that measles is reasonably virulent, and has one of the highest infectious indicies of any known virus.
It killed around 100,000 in 2023 with ~10,000,000 infections. The majority of deaths are in children under 5, mostly due to pneumonia.
Mortality would probably be lower here due to better supportive care than the third world, but why the f*ck would you want to find out.
Measles cases surge worldwide, infecting 10.3 million people in 2023
Measles cases surge worldwide, infecting 10.3 million people in 2023
If it's an infection that after getting it once you generally won't get it again (polio, MMR, probably chicken pox, Hep A and B) we absolutely can get rid of it with mass vaccination.
Someone's banking really heavily on our health care system surviving the loss of its biggest payor and the destruction of the social safety net. I live in a large urban area and I have significant doubts about the pediatric emergency system being able to absorb a bad flu year without excess mortality, let alone a measle epidemic.
I work close to one of the children’s meccas with multiple other children’s teaching EDs in biking, nay, jogging distance. 4! Of them, until one got shut down to make room for more profitable adult elective surgical cases.
But, as a scientist, you should acknowledge that certain viruses such as measles, mumps, polio, and smallpox can be eradicated as they only exist in nature through human reservoirs.
Amen. People are so dumb.
Remember that, half of EVERYONE you see, at work, and off work, are before average.
The problem is that Measles is not the same as COVID for vaccination purposes. We have no sterilizing vaccine for COVID (or influenza). It is impossible to wipe out with current technologies. The government basically forced people to get a poorly effective vaccine (didn't prevent spread, or transmission) that had limited safety data, and statistically no benefit for a large portion of the population. This scandal has led to vaccine hesitancy. Try to convince the average person in Arkansas now that they should get any vaccinations after the deception and fraud of the last 5 years. It's going to take a lot of time, effort and actual science to rebuild the public's trust in our public health agencies.
Sorry dude, but vaccine hesitancy existed way before COVID and it’s widespread adoption among segments of society has far more to do with social media creating echo chambers and being consciously influenced by malign actors than the performance characteristics of any vaccine. It’s a bad faith argument that we need more science to get people to accept vaccines when it wasn’t the lack of science that caused the hesitancy.
I mean – the vaccines that have been around since we were kids? Nah. The whole "just asking questions" crowd is deliberately avoiding educating themselves off the fossil record.
Why can't we debate vaccines? Some have efficacy and benefit (polio), while others are either unnecessary or harmful. The big payday for pharma companies is to get a vaccine on the childhood vaccination schedule which guarantees a stream of pure profit indefinitely. That's why childhood vaccines have gone from a handful, to 30+ in the last 40 years. I can point to the Hepatitis B vaccine as a glaring example. Not something we should be given to infants. We should limit vaccines in the developing immune system to the bare minimum that are necessary for young childhood.
Which part?
Please enlighten us with your informed analysis of the specific negative impact of HBV vaccination in the context of its purpose in eradicating symptomatic HBV infection – and the dire effect of "vaccines in the developing immune system".
I'm tired of patients lecturing me on vaccines. I'm tired of my satisfaction scores taking big hits when I bring up vaccines. I'm tired of being told I "just don't know the truth about vaccines".
Vaccines have a market because the diseases they prevent or significantly reduce in severity sicken, maim, and kill a large enough percentage of the population that people took the time and money to create, test, and manufacture them in large doses. Can you point out the science behind not giving Hep B vaccines to infants? Can you defend your last sentence as anything other than an unscientific appeal to pathos?
Why are you whitewashing COVID? Did you get to ride it out in some magical land where you weren't intubating 2-3x often and having coworkers develop short and long term disabilities or die? This amnesia for how bad things were and combined with the fact that your hated "government overreach" was almost exclusively private companies dictating their employees behavior is a bizarre response to a series of deeply traumatic events.
“Numbers are numbers”
I have to ask: did your hospital not get overwhelmed with COVID at least once? Mine was significantly over capacity twice that I can recall (Fall 2020 and Delta in August/September 2021). We're talking 90% of beds full of COVID.