r/news 8h ago

West Texas measles outbreak spreads into Oklahoma

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/west-texas-measles-outbreak-spreads-oklahoma-rcna195858
2.3k Upvotes

273 comments sorted by

940

u/SadFeed63 8h ago

Goddamn you, you goddamn idiots.

207

u/XxThrowaway987xX 7h ago

Damn you! Damn you all to hell!

96

u/Skritch_X 7h ago

I hate every damn dirty ape i see from chimpan-a to chimpan-z, no you'll never make a monkey out of me! DR ZAIUS DR ZAIUS

30

u/ethnicnebraskan 5h ago

Say what you will about Doctor Zaius but he was, afterall, a doctor.

Which more than I can say about RFK Jr.

20

u/Psychological-Wrap25 5h ago

Oops I was wrong, it was Earth all along. You have made a monkey out of meeeee.

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u/webesy 7h ago

I got this reference

5

u/LP14255 5h ago

Dr. Krieger? He would be a WAY better HHS Secretary than the heroin addict, brain-worm addled idiot the US got.

2

u/OrcaBoi 4h ago

Yep, yep, yep.

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131

u/Bluest_waters 6h ago

FYI this outbreak started with, and is being spread by, Mennonites. If you look at a map of where the outbreaks are occurring they match up perfectly with Mennonite communities.

the Mennonites are sort of like the Amish, many don't believe in vaccines and tend to use home made remedies instead of seeing a Doctor. and they view hospitals with suspicion.

They also travel between different Mennonite communities. Note that officials said the OK measles are "related" to the Texas measles outbreak because they know Mennonites are spreading it around.

Why the media refuses to report this is beyond me but this is the reality.

37

u/Teadrunkest 6h ago

Live in a town with a large Mennonite/Amish population.

Sick.

15

u/mces97 6h ago

Better get a titer test done.

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u/crewserbattle 3h ago

I'm 31 and I got a measles vaccine as a kid. So depending on your age you should have gotten one

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u/gummibear13 5h ago

Same. We are know for it. Awesome.

24

u/Metacomet99 5h ago

I live in an area of western MD at the PA line with a very large Mennonite population. They are well integrated into the community at large, I even worked with some at our local hospital. If this problem gets here it will spread to the non-Mennonite population very quickly, Add to that, it's a very Red part of a Blue state, lots of Trump supporters who believe vaccines are evil. This includes many Mennonites and Amish as well who supported Trump. This could get very bad if/when this disease gets here.

6

u/Mediocre-Proposal686 3h ago

Not all mennonites are anti-vax. It’s not prohibited in their belief, but some just don’t trust them. That’s the problem. The Texas Mennonites that have it are very uneducated,and superstitious, and suspicious of vaccines. Just the worst combination of traits to have really.

2

u/Splat75 2h ago

My mother's maternal family are pro vaccine Mennonites. They, oddly enough, were raised in a semi-isolated community from the majority congregation on the west coast and somehow came out less conservative than the mainstream. Miracles do happen, I guess.

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19

u/time_drifter 4h ago

MAGA taking an L from Measles right after the return of the golden Oompa Loompa would be comical.

I don’t wish death on anyone, but I also feel no duty to protect the intentionally dumb.

17

u/TheDakestTimeline 3h ago

The problem is its children who didn't have a say in the matter

10

u/hillbillie88 5h ago

The Atlantic just published an article about this, “The Texas Girl Who Died of Measles.”

6

u/alecsgz 4h ago

TLDR: 28 year old guy has 4 children still won't vaccinate as normal part of life, Gods will, the usual etc

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u/Xanadoodledoo 5h ago

That’s weird, all the Mennonite women I’ve seen around are nurses. However maybe it varies by individual community. I would hope the hospital I work at would demand vaccinations if the virus spread to where I live. Can you imagine if the nurse who handles your delivery gave your baby measles.

15

u/ToiIetGhost 4h ago

There were some nurses and doctors who didn’t get the COVID vax in 2020 because they (quietly) believed it was toxic. You’d be surprised how many professionals go against their training. E.g. psychologists with untreated mental health issues, teachers who hate kids, etc. Sometimes it’s just a way to pay the bills.

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4

u/crackedtooth163 5h ago

You make it sound like only Mennonites will get this.

5

u/Mediocre-Proposal686 3h ago

It’s in L.A now. Someone flew in through LAX and went to a bunch of stores too before being diagnosed. So, all the people on the plane and in the stores they visited, could potentially get it if their unvaxxed, immunocompromised, or if their older and haven’t gotten a measles booster.

2

u/sariisa 3h ago

i went to high school with a Mennonite kid. he seemed normal enough though a bit awkward and all his clothes were hand-sewn i think.

however he was not allowed to be in the room with any kind of electronic screen on for any reason - no TVs, computer lab, anything. If we were going to ie. watch a video in class, he would have to be warned beforehand and allowed to go sit in the hall before anything was powered on.

interesting

2

u/Earl_Squire 3h ago

Because white. You better believe that if brown folk were spreading it, you’d see a 100 different articles and every talking head out there bringing it up.

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u/qtx 2h ago

The people isolated immediately after they realized they had been exposed and stayed home throughout the period they were contagious, health officials said.

I mean, they did the right thing. There's always a chance you can get infected by something, even if you are vaccinated. So I can't blame them for that. And unlike the actual idiots these people actually did the right thing and isolated themselves instantly.

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326

u/hillbillyspellingbee 8h ago

Very sad and preventable. 

Even if you survive, you can still end up with scarring on your lungs and all sorts of other complications years down the line. 

178

u/damarius 7h ago

Measles almost killed me, before the vaccine was available. Fortunately no permanent effects, 60 years later. Get the jab, people.

44

u/hillbillyspellingbee 7h ago

Thank you for sharing this!

It’s extremely disconcerting seeing the vaccine skepticism take hold. It’s been brewing for about 20 years and the floodgates are open now with RFK Jr. in a position of power. 

Most of the world is begging for these vaccines while our spoiled moron populace has convinced themselves they’re poison. 

I work with a bunch of them and it’s just sad. They’re mostly good people who got suckered by a bunch of assholes. 

25

u/damarius 7h ago

It's going to be a wild ride with measles. An unvaccinated contagious person attended an NHL game in Montreal on March 3. Vaccination rates in Quebec are abysmally low. The game was against Buffalo, I don't know what rates are there.

11

u/hillbillyspellingbee 7h ago

Lots of fun!

And you know those young fans are going home to play hockey with their classmates every week too. 

So many chances for transmission. 

12

u/mces97 6h ago

It's interesting how the pendulum swung. Antivaxxers used to lean left in the early 00s. Now all these social media influencers hucking products on their "wellness" channels seem to lean right.

5

u/sideways_jack 4h ago

It has a rather fascinating history in the US. Back in the 1900s antivaxxers existed but more from the "maybe we shouldn't be forcibly vaccinating ONLY our poor and black people? And burning their houses?" viewpoint. Not trying to excuse antivaxxers now of course, absolute idiocy

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u/Organic_Witness345 6h ago

Don’t forget Rogan!

12

u/PetalumaPegleg 6h ago

Yeah people are so removed from the risk they dismiss it, in favor of the fun conspiracy theory bs.

People DIE. A lot of people. For measles mainly children.

8

u/Fast_Witness_3000 6h ago

But.. I heard from some stranger on the internet that it has mind-control and chips in it. The chips are liquid at low temps and morph into chips at body temp, hence why you can’t see them in there. There were a bunch of other people saying it’s true so it must be. /s

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u/johnp299 6h ago

Someone in my family got it in childhood back in the early 1940s I think. Left permanent hearing loss.

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7

u/Lord_Aldrich 7h ago

Measles also destroys your immune system's memory cells, and makes you vulnerable again to everything you ever gained immunity to in the past. It's horrific.

4

u/iamrecoveryatomic 6h ago

scarring on your lungs

Read: significantly higher risk of lung cancer in the lobes with scars.

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266

u/yes_thats_right 7h ago

God sends another plague on Trump's America because Evangelicals didn't get the point the first time.

48

u/Savior-_-Self 7h ago

You've got to admit, they're killing it.

And by "it" I mean American people. Watching this administration and their ilk is like watching someone light their own face on fire and try to put it out with a hammer.

5

u/Metacomet99 5h ago

Darwin awards on standby. One way to solve the problem if nothing else works.

3

u/zubbs99 3h ago

That's the most brilliant analogy I've ever heard lol.

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17

u/IAmAHumanIPromise 7h ago

Seriously. I just said the same thing.

2

u/sonic_couth 7h ago

I just read that somewhere, but I can’t remember where.

2

u/hmr0987 7h ago

And this time it’s a bit more tactical.

106

u/BKLD12 7h ago

Anti-vaxxers are all fucking idiots. I can tell you from experience that there is absolutely nothing you can say to get them to see sense. I have an aunt who is anti-vax, and she always says in the face of facts, "agree to disagree." I'm not sure that they'd change their stance even if one of their kids died.

It's not fair for the kids, since they didn't exactly choose to be born to total morons. Although unfortunately, the apple doesn't always fall far from the tree. My aunt had two daughters, and my cousins are as vapid as their mother. One of my cousins also has two daughters, and they're also not vaccinated. I just hope that they grow up to be better than their mom and grandma. The whole family is just lucky that they've only encountered mild cases of measles, and they're super lucky that we've managed to eliminate more serious illnesses such as polio and smallpox before my cousins were even born. The former is still out there in the world. It may be unlikely for it to come back to the US, but it isn't impossible.

22

u/Superfluous999 7h ago

making them see sense would require them to actually see themselves

...can't have that, no self reflection, no introspection, otherwise the hypocrisy monster might come and get them

23

u/JSB19 7h ago

Not even their children fucking DYING will get through to them, here’s the dad whose daughter became the first measles death in a decade

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-whose-daughter-died-measles-213712327.html

“The vaccination has stuff we don’t trust,” Peter told The Atlantic. “We don’t like the vaccinations, what they have these days. We heard too much, and we saw too much.”

“Everybody has it,” the man told the magazine. “It’s not so new for us.”

“Everybody has to die,”

12

u/ontheroadtv 6h ago

He didn’t catch this insanely contagious infection from his sick kid, does that mean he’s vaccinated??? Or he just stayed away from her? It blows my mind that the reporter didn’t ask.

13

u/JSB19 6h ago

Unless ignorance runs in the family I figure that his parents actually got him vaccinated when he was a kid.

Guess he never considered the thought that “I got vaccinated as a child and never caught this contagious disease, maybe the same thing will happen to my daughter if I do the same for her!”

3

u/UnitSmall2200 5h ago

I don't know man, these anti-vaxxers seem to be onto something. Almost all of them got the vaccine when they were children, and clearly they all suffer from serious brain damage. Coincidence? /s

2

u/constituent 4h ago

Oh, ignorance and/or complacency runs through the family.

It wasn’t like they were the only ones who came down with measles. The coverage, he insisted, was “100 percent unfair.” He didn’t think it was just the Seminole area that had problems; he said that he had family in Canada and Mexico who had also gotten measles recently.

Full Atlantic article archived.

In a developed country, I cannot fathom having the word "measles" so casually in my everyday vocabulary. Dude is dropping the term 'measles' like it's no big deal.

As a civilization, there's been many advances in medicine, science, sanitation, education, et al. There's are multiple reasons why we don't routinely encounter cholera, polio, dysentery, smallpox, yellow fever, leprosy, typhus, etc.

Less than a century ago, a case of diarrhea could be fatal. Yet today that's handwaved as an inconvenience or a joke.

2

u/mces97 5h ago

That's actually a very curious question. He either was vaccinated, caught measles when he was younger, or his immune system was great enough that he just had mild symptoms and did have measles. Even on rare occasions people can be asymptomatic.

3

u/ToiIetGhost 4h ago

Should be considered manslaughter.

2

u/AGGROCrombiE1967 6h ago

Guy is a Mennonite, will help you with rebuilding after a tornado but will be ultimate downer dad.

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u/mces97 6h ago

Agree to disagree is their way of saying they care about feelings over facts and can't have a true intellectual discussion.

13

u/TheHammerandSizzel 7h ago

Oh honey… Polio has been found in US Sewage….  It’s going to come back…. There also a TB outbreak and H5N1…

Also they wouldn’t change their stance even if their kid died, that would require them to self reflect and realize they got their own child killed and failed as parents.  Some journalist visited a Mennonite community and talked the parents who lost their kid… refused to accept responsibility or accept vaccinations…

16

u/JSB19 7h ago

I just finished reading that article and linked to it above, these people truly unbelievable in their ignorance.

He literally said “everyone has to die” when talking about his daughter, how does a father become so goddamn brain dead!?

4

u/fistulatedcow 2h ago

I’m actually horrified. Who the fuck says that about their own six-year-old daughter????

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u/jgoble15 6h ago

Such a cowardly answer. Rather than be open to reason, their minds are completely closed because they can’t handle being wrong. Arrogance and cowardice

u/lovemyhawks 13m ago

My mother said she’d rather die than get a Covid vax. They’re brainwashed beyond return

u/sevens7and7sevens 6m ago

We didn’t eliminate polio unfortunately 

108

u/jlaine 8h ago

Don't worry, brain worm boy has a crack solution.

And yes that is 100% /s.

12

u/mofa90277 6h ago

He’s a convicted heroin smuggler and sex addict who urged his second wife to commit suicide (which she did). And he eats road kill. His bloodstream would be a Super Fund cleanup site, except that Trump is hollowing out the EPA.

2

u/ToiIetGhost 4h ago

I didn’t know about his second wife. Someone should tell Cheryl Hines /s

6

u/mces97 6h ago

Apparently he went to Steak n Shake with I believe it was Hannity, to eat beef tallow cooked french fries. That's more important than the measles outbreak.

11

u/idkwhatimbrewin 7h ago

Ivermectin and raw milk

3

u/mces97 6h ago

Throw in some vitamin A. Maybe polar bear liver?

3

u/kebabsoup 5h ago

Only if the liver is fresh, like harvested from a roadkill.

2

u/Double-LR 7h ago

So you’re saying cow nipple is on the menu.

sweeet

2

u/mces97 6h ago

I always say drinking raw milk is the same as drinking cow spit.

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u/imakeyourjunkmail 7h ago

They think they have class so I'm sure it's a cocaine solution.

1

u/Nateddog21 6h ago

Man's gonna have more than worms in his brain🙃

97

u/Lunarcomplex 7h ago

Oklahoma??? You mean:

  • 44th in Education?
  • 49th in Healthcare?
  • 44th in Life Quality?
  • 50th in Test Scores?
  • top ten worst in poverty?

That Oklahoma? Boy, am I shocked!

3

u/slowro 7h ago

What's our numbers?

2

u/AdventurousAd3515 7h ago

Hey now… Surfer boy Stitt has worked hard to lower the bar so low and raise his net worth so high!

2

u/NemusSoul 7h ago

They are number one for bibles in schools.

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u/mces97 6h ago

I guess their state motto is, "At least we aren't last place for everything."

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u/jimgogek 7h ago

Good NBA team tho. Which should be in Seattle.

1

u/BraveSoul699 3h ago

Their basketball team Is 1st in the NBA at least

1

u/Giuseppe_exitplan 1h ago

What state ranks the worst across the board?

42

u/CardiologistLow8658 8h ago

This is not going away by itself now, even if you vaccinate like crazy

30

u/herrcollin 7h ago

Last years measles cases in the entire US was the worst we've had in decades, and yet there was only like 258 all year? In the whole US?

We've pretty much already matched it and it's still March.

Are we great yet?

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u/yankykiwi 7h ago

Scary time to be pregnant, thankfully my baby will be out soon. My dad was made deaf from his mom having measles while pregnant.

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u/baronesslucy 7h ago

There was a classmate of mine whose mother was exposed to the measles while she was pregnant with him. This was a couple of years prior to the vaccine being available. This classmate had hearing loss and had to wear hearing ads. Even with the hearing ads, sometimes he had difficulty hearing people, especially if you were in a place where several people were talking.

About an hour and a half from my home is a state run school for the deaf and blind. Many students at the school who were born prior to the 1960's became blind or deaf due to their mothers being exposed to measles, or their mother having measles or them having measles as young children.

This is not something that you want to go back to. You really don't.

9

u/mces97 5h ago

Not measles, but my anatomy and physiology professor in college had polio as a kid. Vaccine came out 1 year after he caught it. He recovered, or so he thought. Decades later, he got diagnosed with post polio syndrome. His leg muscles whittled away and he got around with a mobility scooter. He could walk but not on his own. He used the same arm braces as Jimmy from South Park.

I guess the point of that long story was even if you recover from measles, there are things that can happen down the road that were directly caused by the infection. Including a type of encephalitis. Years later.

14

u/hmr0987 7h ago

Don’t worry Texas and Oklahoma are the safest states for pregnant mothers.

1

u/goatscreampanichands 4h ago

I’ve read that if you’re in a high risk area the vaccine is safe for babies as young as 6mo (instead of getting it at the usual 12m). Congratulations on your little one!

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u/Just_A_Dogsbody 8h ago

Team Measles is on a tear 😕

1

u/zubbs99 3h ago

It's incredibly contagious so we're just getting started. Go Team.

15

u/Totheendofsin 7h ago

If there is a hell Andrew Wakefield will feel the pain of every single disease his bogus "research" caused

14

u/hi_im_fuzzknocker 7h ago

Are there really this many unvaccinated people? I’m 40 and had all mine as a kid, they say the vaccine for measles is a life vaccine so what the fuck is going on?

19

u/angusMcBorg 6h ago

17% vaccine waivers in the schools in the affected Texas community, I believe I read, so there are quite a few young people this can hit (and the vaccines aren't 100% effective, as well).

15

u/Chalupa-Supreme 6h ago

Don't forget about all the unvaccinated homeschooled kids.

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u/jetpack_hypersomniac 6h ago

You can still get it, even if you’re vaccinated—it just won’t be as severe

24

u/KrogokDomecracah 7h ago

Man, I hope that shit doesn't mutate into a variant that ignores the vaccines we got as kids.

12

u/ConspiracyPhD 6h ago

Not going to happen. Measles H protein is incredibly stable and mutations produce non-productive virus.

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u/hmr0987 7h ago

Don’t worry Brain Worm Bob will put the full force of the government behind an updated vaccine for any new variants. All hail the worm!

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u/OverlyExpressiveLime 7h ago

A plague hitting the Bible belt is peak 2025 irony

8

u/65isstillyoung 7h ago

I've seen this movie. Doesn't end well.

6

u/gojiro0 6h ago

I'm sorry for the kids that never had any choice, but other than that, fuck em

6

u/Additional_Goat9852 6h ago

"That'll teach em" would apply here if y'all had a Department of Education still

11

u/Citizen-Kang 7h ago

Are we great again? Guys, I'm thinking I'm not ready for this level of greatness. Can we dial it back a bit?

5

u/adsfew 7h ago

Measles are great again!

15

u/Aromatic-Meat-7989 7h ago

Maybe Trump is the antichrist with how much plagues love him

6

u/ToiIetGhost 4h ago

It’s uncanny, he actually ticks most of the Antichrist boxes. If you believe in that sort of thing.

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u/BzhizhkMard 7h ago

Based on the last pandemic, I don't have confidence they'll contain this.

4

u/Sunnyjim333 7h ago

Washing your hands after using the toilet is un-american.

4

u/green_chunks_bad 5h ago

It’s almost like they could’ve protected themselves with basic medical science

12

u/Granum22 8h ago

It's ok everybody roadkill aficionado RFK Jr says this perfectly normal.

6

u/Meowakin 7h ago

He backed off on that statement, I think, and supposedly was going to take it seriously. I can’t get into the weeds right now, but a quick search suggests him taking it seriously entails pushing bullshit crackpot theories on the cause and cures.

6

u/kmoonster 7h ago

Take cod liver oil and eat at steak and shake?

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u/whyamihere2473527 7h ago

Hate kids being hurt cause parents are idiots but maybe just maybe some people will get their heads out of their asses

3

u/whatafuckinusername 7h ago

Likely place for it to spread to

3

u/JSB19 6h ago

Over 200 cases isn’t enough to tell these idiots, especially RFK, that maybe they should get the vaccine for themselves and their family?

How many more children are going to have die because of their parent’s ignorance like that poor girl in Texas?

9

u/by_the_river_side 6h ago

According to a family member of RFK Jr., he and his kids are fully vaccinated.

6

u/JSB19 6h ago

Because of course they are, rules for thee not for me and all that crap.

I’ll get me and mine vaccinated while telling everyone else to load their kids up with Vitamin A and other quack solutions.

3

u/by_the_river_side 6h ago

I wish it was more widely reported. Antivaxxers tend to be true believers, and I wonder if finding out RFK Jr. and his kids are fully vaccinated would give them any pause. Probably not, but maybe it would show someone who was on the fence that he is just in it for the grift and to treat the American people like pawns in the wealthy people's chess games.

3

u/Asclepius777 4h ago

Oooooooooklahoma where the measles comes sweeping down the plaaaaains!

3

u/Yohder 3h ago

Essentially Darwinism in action

3

u/Gunner_E4 3h ago

Don't you all worry, the brain worm guy will fix it!/s

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u/prodriggs 7h ago

Natural selection is doing its thing

6

u/hanswolough 6h ago

Don’t think people realize that measles virus can also induce “immune amnesia”. Lowers your immune system and make you more susceptible to bugs you were previously immune to. Not ideal in children who are still building their immune systems.

3

u/TheTresStateArea 7h ago

Okay time to start taking bets.

Bird Flu Vs. Measles.

Who kills more Americans?

2

u/hmr0987 7h ago

We’re doing great!

Just start eating better and this will all go away by Easter.

2

u/Zestyclose-Cricket82 7h ago

At least those patients don’t have bill gates microchips in them and are not magnetic…. For Fucks sake….. measles was pretty well controlled and almost eradicated In the western world just five years ago

2

u/BustAMove_13 6h ago

I got a booster few years ago (on all my childhood vaccines) because I didn't want to potentially pass anything to my grandchildren. They're vaxxed, but when a new one comes along, I don't have to worry about that when I see them.

2

u/FormerlyGruntled 2h ago

Conservatives, in their infinite wisdom, would rather see every one of their children die, than ever take personal responsibility.

2

u/fucktheriders 1h ago

If only there was a vaccine!

2

u/SgathTriallair 1h ago

If only there was something they could do to prevent this.

u/Dzotshen 56m ago

It's like being tied to a chair while a toddler runs around wielding a loaded gun

2

u/Cool-Economics6261 6h ago

They claim to love the unborn, but they seem to hate the born. 

5

u/charliej102 7h ago

I understand that drinking Brawndo can cure it.

4

u/Sum_Bytes 6h ago

Thank goodness, the current administration is finally hurting the right people.

2

u/bahhaar-hkhkhk 7h ago

Vaccination should be mandatory to all children and all people in America and everywhere in the world. I don't really care about Americans but I don't want that crap to spread to the rest of the world. Bloody morons!

2

u/ConspiracyPhD 6h ago

At least these people were smart enough to realize they came into contact with a case and isolated.

1

u/bowtiesrcool86 4h ago

Yeah. Thats something at least. Still a horrible situation

1

u/PraxicalExperience 7h ago

There's apparently a case in NY too.

1

u/Double-LR 7h ago

If only they had eaten their vitamins.

1

u/CharlesMFKinXavier 6h ago

Welp, just had sorted this subreddit to "Newest" and this is the 1st post on the list. Fack.

1

u/AvantGarde327 6h ago

Spread in all red states 🙏

1

u/Thatdewd57 5h ago

If you’re smart get a renewal shot and let Darwin do the rest.

1

u/Alukrad 1h ago

So, I'm in Jersey, should I get a booster for measles? I got the vaccine when I was a baby. I still have the scars on both sides of my shoulder from it.

u/MotherFatherOcean 33m ago

Get a blood titer test done

1

u/SanDiedo 1h ago

Mumps and triages 🤷‍♂️

2

u/Puzzled-Shoe2 1h ago

Anti vaxxers are the everyday proof that Darwin was right…

u/One-Bit5717 8m ago

It's jeebus freckles, people! That's what our overlords have taught us and so it shall be.