NBC News reports:
The Florida measles outbreak is expanding. On Friday, health officials in Broward County confirmed a seventh case of the virus, a child under age 5.
The patient is the youngest so far to be infected in the outbreak, and the first to be identified outside of Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston, near Fort Lauderdale. It’s unknown what connection the youngest measles case has to the school, but the spread beyond school-age kids was expected.
Cases are “not going to stay contained just to that one school, not when a virus is this infectious,” said Dr. David Kimberlin, co-director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The Washington Post reports:
As a Florida elementary school tries to contain a growing measles outbreak, the state’s top health official is giving advice that runs counter to science and may leave unvaccinated children at risk of contracting one of the most contagious pathogens on Earth, clinicians and public health experts said.
Florida surgeon general Joseph A. Ladapo failed to urge parents to vaccinate their children or keep unvaccinated students home from school as a precaution in a letter to parents at the Fort Lauderdale-area school this week following six confirmed measles cases.
Instead of following what he acknowledged was the “normal” recommendation that parents keep unvaccinated children home for up to 21 days — the incubation period for measles — Ladapo said the state health department “is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance.”
Florida’s measles outbreak is the largest in the U.S. right now.
And what Florida’s health officials are doing, or not doing, is drawing fire from experts who study the way diseases spread. https://t.co/bbXgeFN5mm
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 24, 2024
As a Florida elementary school tries to contain a growing measles outbreak, the state’s top health official is giving advice that runs counter to science. https://t.co/OcHHnb4eH1
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 23, 2024
Florida readies for Hot Measles Summer under whackjob surgeon general https://t.co/Z2ximwPIpi
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 23, 2024