WTF, Polio is Back?
In my Tier Tuesday slot last week I wrote " Player 2 has entered the game" about how a growing epidemic of Monkeypox cases is not being taken seriously enough and is subject to controversial, misleading messaging. In my Tier Tuesday slot this week (yes, I know it's a day behind) there's sadly now a Player Three that has entered the game... and it's an old scourge. Polio.
Yes, Polio, a disease thought basically eradicated eradicated decades ago. Polio, the disease that prior to widespread immunization in the 1950s killed people or paralyzed them for life in repeated epidemic outbreaks. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of its victims. Through 90%+ uptake of a vaccine that was 99% effective we went from tens of thousands of cases a year down to, like, one case every 10-20 years.
Now there's a case in New York. It's a young adult who's unvaccinated. And who hasn't traveled... which means community spread is already happening. And in in New York the vaccination rate is no longer the 93% we once had as a nationwide average but is as low as 37% in some counties. Dumb, vaccine-denying people are making themselves sitting targets for a harmful, deadly disease.
Even worse, vaccine deniers are hurting not only themselves but the rest of us. Virus need human hosts to reproduce in. That's part of why high vaccination rates are important. Unvaccinated people are safe harbors for the virus, places where it can rest, replicate... and even mutate into new strains our vaccines and medicines are less effective against. In the war against viruses, the unvaxxed are like countries that give aid and comfort to terrorists.
Yes, Polio, a disease thought basically eradicated eradicated decades ago. Polio, the disease that prior to widespread immunization in the 1950s killed people or paralyzed them for life in repeated epidemic outbreaks. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of its victims. Through 90%+ uptake of a vaccine that was 99% effective we went from tens of thousands of cases a year down to, like, one case every 10-20 years.
Now there's a case in New York. It's a young adult who's unvaccinated. And who hasn't traveled... which means community spread is already happening. And in in New York the vaccination rate is no longer the 93% we once had as a nationwide average but is as low as 37% in some counties. Dumb, vaccine-denying people are making themselves sitting targets for a harmful, deadly disease.
Even worse, vaccine deniers are hurting not only themselves but the rest of us. Virus need human hosts to reproduce in. That's part of why high vaccination rates are important. Unvaccinated people are safe harbors for the virus, places where it can rest, replicate... and even mutate into new strains our vaccines and medicines are less effective against. In the war against viruses, the unvaxxed are like countries that give aid and comfort to terrorists.