Across the country, we’re seeing a reemergence of measles, including the death of a child in Lubbock, Texas. Health experts are expressing concern that parents aren’t having their children vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella.
Yesterday, our Flathead City-County Health Department reported a second case of measles in our local population. The good news — if there is any, is that the exposure came from traveling out of the area, but that’s where the good news ends. This second case involves several locations where additional people could have been exposed.
Last Friday, from about 2:40 to 5:30, the carrier was at “The Rock,” on the Logan Health campus and then this past Monday, the carrier spent a good part of the day in the Logan Health ER. Anyone who was at these locations and these times could have been infected.
Across the state, we’re up to 13 measles cases.
Logan Health pediatrician Dr. Ken Graham tells us we really don’t know how many of us have received the MMR shots. The 2021 Legislature passed House Bill 334, dropping the requirement that counties report vaccination numbers. And so, Dr. Graham tells us, we don’t know how many of us in Flathead County are vaccinated against measles.
Dr. Graham and others in the medical community assure us that the MMR vaccine is safe but they also realize that vaccination if a personal matter and, therefore, private.
