Reply to Measles confirmed - exposure to thousands in NoVA and DC

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[quote=Anonymous]I was off by a decimal point, so I am rewriting the numbers and will ask Jeff to delete.

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[quote=Anonymous]Doesn’t this area have really good vaccination rates?[/quote]

Sure, and that's great. It's still an awful situation. We'll just have to see how it shakes out.

- The combined population of MD, VA, and DC is roughly 16 million.
- There is a combined measles vaccination rate of about 95%, among those eligible. It's based on the percentage of kindergartners who have had two doses, so the 95% is calculated on ~5 year olds, so it doesn't include infants, etc.
- So about 0.05*16 million, or about 800,000 people who could be vaccinated are estimated not to be vaccinated, or not fully vaccinated. 
- Around 5.7% of the US population is under 5 years old. Let's call it 5%. That's another 800,000 not fully vaccinated. 
- The failure rate for 2 doses of the MMR is (depending on your source) somewhere between 3% and something less than 1%. Let's just call it 1%. That's another 160,000.
- There are a lot more people now with waning immunities of various kinds, as COVID infections seem to be wiping out prior immunities, sometimes (much like measles infection does). And you have people on immunosuppressants, or high dose steroids, or with autoimmune deficiencies, etc. Call it another 1%, or 160,000.

When you add it all up, even with a really good vaccination rate, there's probably around 1.9 million people in MD, VA, and DC who are not fully protected against measles. That is EXACTLY why herd immunity is so important -- when a spark is lit and hits the right person, it dies out. But if it's the wrong person, or a series of wrong people, there is exponential growth. You just don't know for sure in advance.

The odds are still good for individuals -- it's when you look at big groups that the problems show. If 1/100 those who are vulnerable get sick [a bad case scenario], that's about [19,000] -- [because 1,900,000/100 is 19,000]. You would expect:

- 1 in 5 hospitalized, or around [3800] people
- 1 in 20 cases of pneumonia, or around [950] people

The worst complications tend to happen in children.
- 1 in 1000 children to get encephalitis (can come with seizures and lasting intellectual disability)
- 1 to 3 children in 1000 to die

If herd immunity holds, that won't happen. If the virus gets into large pockets of unvaccinated people such as were at the pro-life rally, and those people carry it widespread enough to overwhelm herd immunity, then there will be more of a problem.

vax rates - https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/track-measles-outbreak-cases-us-map-rcna198932
population by age - https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/united-states-population-by-age/
measles sequelae - https://www.cdc.gov/measles/signs-symptoms/index.html[/quote]

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