Tag: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

U.S. Measles Cases Just Reached a 33-Year High

Buck Banks

Measles cases in the U.S. have reached a 33-year high, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Outbreak Response Innovation (CORI). The center reports that there are now 1,277 confirmed cases across 38 states and the District of Columbia, the highest annual tally since 1992. The U.S. had achieved measles-free status in 2000.

“It’s a harbinger of things to come,” Eric Ball, a leading pediatrician, told the Washington Post. “Once we see a resurgence of measles, we know that other diseases are going to come behind it.”

Even amid a flurry of vaccine disinformation, the rate of MMR (measles, mumps and rubella vaccine) jabs administered in 2019 was at 95% — the rate experts believe curtails outbreaks. It has now slid to below 93%, and outbreaks are occurring in dozens of states. Anti-vaccine messaging and distrust in federal health agencies have contributed to the decline.

Three people have died of measles-related complications this year, while 155 people have been hospitalized. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that just three people died of measles complications between 2001 and 2024.

Government Has No Idea About the Svope of Coronavirus Infections in U.S.

Buck Banks

445

“The discovery that a California woman was likely infected with the novel coronavirus by a previously unrecognized case in her community is proof of an enormous problem the country is facing at the moment, according to public health experts. It’s clear that the virus is spreading undetected in the United States — but how broadly it’s spreading is an utter mystery,” STAT reports. “Before Thursday, a perfect storm of problems in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of test kits — and the agency’s reluctance to expand its recommendation of who should be tested given the limited availability of kits — meant very little testing has been done in the country. As of Wednesday, the CDC said that 445 people had been tested — a fraction of the number of tests that other countries have run.”

The Government Can Quarantine You and Probably ‘Quarantine’ You

Buck Banks

“Regulations set forth by the CDC give health officials broad authority to quarantine or isolate anyone ‘reasonably believed’ to have been exposed to a range of highly infectious diseases. The list includes cholera, infectious tuberculosis and flus that can cause a pandemic. … The government’s powers to sequester people in the name of public health are rooted in the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which allows Congress to regulate foreign and interstate commerce.”

— Washington Post

CDC: Not a Question of If, but When for Covid-19

Buck Banks

“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen in this country any more but a question of when this will happen.”

— The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that Americans should brace for the likelihood that the coronavirus will spread to communities in the United States, the New York Times reports.