ARS TECHNICA – A Texas health authority is warning against “measles parties” as the outbreak in West Texas grew to at least 146 cases, with 20 hospitalized and one unvaccinated school-age child dead.
The outbreak continues to mainly be in unvaccinated children.
In a press briefing hosted by the city of Lubbock, Texas, on Friday, Ron Cook, chief health officer at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, offered the stark warning for Texans in his opening statements.
“What I want you to hear is: It’s not good to go have measles parties because what may happen is—we can’t predict who’s going to do poorly with measles, be hospitalized, potentially get pneumonia or encephalitis and or pass away from this,” Cook said.
“So that’s a foolish idea to go have a measles party. The best thing to do is make sure that you’re well-vaccinated.”
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“This outbreak is going to continue to grow.” – Lubbock director of public health, Katherine Wells
Lubbock sits about 90 miles northwest of the outbreak’s epicenter in Gaines County, which is one of the state’s least vaccinated counties. It has recorded 98 of the outbreak’s 146 cases.
While Lubbock has only reported two of the 146 cases, patients from elsewhere have been treated in Lubbock.
That includes the first two cases in the outbreak as well as the child who died of the infection earlier this week, who was not a resident of Lubbock.
It’s unclear if any measles parties are occurring in Gaines or elsewhere; “It’s mostly been… social media talk,” Cook said in response to a follow-up question from Ars.
He noted that measles parties and chickenpox parties were more common practices decades ago, before vaccines for both diseases were available.
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But he again warned about the dangers today. “Please don’t do that. It’s just foolishness; it’s playing roulette,” he said.
Cook, along with Lubbock’s director of public health, Katherine Wells, said they see no end in sight for the outbreak, which now spans nine counties in Texas, many of which have low vaccination rates.