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Comment by jwgarber | Hacker News Reader

Here's the origin of the outbreak:

> Public health officials say it started when an international traveller attended a wedding in New Brunswick last October. New Brunswick's outbreak ended in January, but guests at that wedding had already brought the virus to southwestern Ontario, where that province's outbreak was concentrated among closely knit Mennonite communities.

International travel + spread among low-vaccination communities.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/livestory/canada-measles-elim...

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from https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/not-surprising-heres-w...

  Certain religious and cultural groups, including Mennonite populations — where the first outbreak began on Oct. 27, 2024, after an international traveller from Thailand attended a wedding in New Brunswick and guests then returned to southwestern Ontario — and Amish populations, were disproportionately affected.

A reporter from The Globe and Mail, Nathan Vanderklippe, did a deep dive into the measles outbreak in New Brunswick/Ontario/Alberta/Texas.

see https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-measles-outbre...

or non-paywalled version

https://web.archive.org/web/20250922034906/https://www.thegl...

or if you want to watch/listen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEU4uTK5abQ

> Measles, a dangerous illness that for decades has rarely infected Canadians, is back – and spreading. [...] Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., left, now the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, stands with protesters in Olympia, Wash., in 2019, opposing a bill to tighten measles, mumps and rubella vaccine requirements for school-aged children.

Reading this, it's a challenge to feel empathy. Everyone deserves some degree of empathy, idiots too. Yet this topic seems so needlessly self inflicted. Maybe it's a more nuanced topic than I'm aware of, is there a strong argument against vaccination?

There's a fraudulent argument against vaccination. Unfortunately many people believe the fraudsters.

RFK... sigh

And the guy he works for ... sigh bigly

Antichrist?

no, antivax

if ever there was someone that met that definition, it would be him

presumably that's why peter thiel went on his spiel about the antichrist -- because he's met him, and is trying to get out in front of it

There are different sources of antivax attitudes in different communities. For some, there's a religious or cultural basis. For others, they are simply the victims of a well-funded and concerted misinformation campaign.

A good example if the ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn for whom a gloosy booklet seems to bear a lot of responsibility [1] and this predates Covid. It's particularly interesting because certain preventable diseases can cause male infertility.

This became such a big problem that Israel had to counter this misinformation so ultra-Orthodox communities would get Covid vaccines [2].

None of this came from any form of Judaism.

[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/brooklyn-measles-outbre...

[2]: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/988812635/how-israel-persuade...

> religious or cultural basis .... a well-funded and concerted misinformation campaign

There's way less difference between those two things than their different names imply.

The outbreak then spread to Alberta where travelers returned from a wedding in southwestern Ontario. However, there was at least 6 unique entries into Alberta so it wasn't a single outbreak, but in fact, 6 separate outbreaks. Some entered the province following travel to Mexico, again to attend weddings I believe.

International travel also implicates the poorly vaccinated - the ones who received the cheaper form of the inoculation.

I had no idea that there were different tiers of inoculation - how does that work? Do the cheaper ones intentionally use the wrong virus or something?

Edit: after a brief search, it appears you are mistaken about the efficacy of different measles vaccines - they are all effective.

Public health guidance contraindicates live measles vaccines in significantly immunocompromised patients.

Live measles vaccines are most commonly used in the most deeply poverty-stricken regions,

where nobody is differentiating between the immunocompromised, and the rest of the line of scared people.

PS https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/opinion-cdc-vaccine-reve...

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