Eight people have been diagnosed since last month. None was immune to measles — meaning they either never got vaccinated or contracted measles before.

At least eight people have been diagnosed with measles in an outbreak that started last month in the Philadelphia area. The most recent two cases were confirmed on Monday.

The outbreak began after a child who’d recently spent time in another country was admitted to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) with an infection, which was subsequently identified as measles. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health considers the case to be “imported” but did not say from where.

The disease then spread to three other people at CHOP, two of whom were already hospitalized there for other reasons.

Two of those infected at the hospital were a parent and child. The child had not been vaccinated and the parent was offered medication usually given to unvaccinated people that can prevent infection after exposure to measles, but refused it, the Philadelphia Inquirer first reported.

Despite quarantine instructions, the child was sent to day care on Dec. 20 and 21, the health department said.

  • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website
    1591·
    10 months ago

    Isn’t this criminal negligence?

    Being told by a medical professional to quarantine and wantonly ignoring it is a lot like your mechanic telling you not to drive a car and you doing it anyway.

    I don’t see why the family shouldn’t be held to account for every single infection they started by sending their kid to day care.

    • The Pantser@lemmy.world
      433·
      10 months ago

      Except who will arrest them? The cops won’t enforce mask or quarantine mandates. COVID fucked all that up.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
      19·
      10 months ago

      If the government truly wants to enforce a quarantine, they can. Remember when the Ebola scare was a thing? I know someone who was caught up in that; They were required to do thrice daily temperature checks, and the CDC would randomly call a landline they set up, around ten times a day. On those calls, they had to report any potential symptoms for every single person in the household. The CDC made it very clear that if they didn’t answer the phone, the feds were coming inside with hazmat gear to verify they hadn’t snuck out. It was basically house arrest without the ankle monitors.

      They had to have a very awkward conversation with their boss about it, because they were working as a lowly retail worker at the time. It was basically “hey uhh… You’ve seen the Ebola stuff in the news right? Yeah, I won’t be able to come in for a little while, because the feds say I’ll be arrested if I leave my house.”

    • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
      2311·
      10 months ago

      Its tempting to rail against these parents but for the daycare part specifically let us not forget that people in America don’t get free healthcare, and we dont get paid sick days. You take your kid to daycare not because you fucking want to, your American boss doesn’t give a shit about your problems, he needs you in right now or you’re looking for another way to feed your kids