Florida’s controversial surgeon general is drawing criticism for his handling of an elementary school’s measles outbreak, telling parents of unvaccinated children it is their choice whether their students attend class — a contravention of federal guidelines calling for their mandatory exclusion.
Dr. Joseph Ladapo, nationally known for his outspoken skepticism toward the COVID-19 vaccine, sent a letter this week to parents at Manatee Bay Elementary School near Fort Lauderdale after six students contracted the highly contagious and potentially deadly virus. Such outbreaks are rare in the United States, though reported cases have spiked from 58 for all of 2023 to 35 already this year.
The letter notes that when a school has a measles outbreak, it is “normally recommended” that unvaccinated students who haven’t previously had the disease be kept home for three weeks “because of the high likelihood” they will be infected.
You are right that the antivaxxers are just fucking around and finding out, but for scientists learning about how such people react to finding out will be really interesting when the disease inevitably sweeps through Florida schools. Also it’ll be a good model for the loss of herd immunity.
I’m not opitimistic that Floridians will change, but what I’m really curious about is if their government will decide to do anything when the worst happens. It reminds me about how people were big into crypto and NFTs and stuff because they are unregulated, only to slowly learn that we have regulations for a reason. How many children (who would likely become their own constituents) are Florida republicans willing to sacrifice to earn some political points with crazy people?