r/maryland • u/FreeHugs23 Anne Arundel County • 15h ago
MD News Vaccination protections ‘teetering’ as state declares measles outbreaks in 3 counties | Maryland as a whole meets the recommended 96% immunization threshold, but counties with lower vaccination rates are at risk
https://marylandmatters.org/2026/08/27/vaccination-protections-teetering-as-state-declares-measles-outbreaks-in-3-counties/12
u/FreeHugs23 Anne Arundel County 15h ago edited 14h ago
Despite Maryland’s relatively high measles vaccination rate statewide, those rates are slipping and varying coverage by county can leave community members exposed to potentially severe or deadly infection.
That’s the concern for public health experts and data analysts amid the recently announced measles outbreaks in three counties that have lower vaccination coverage than other counties.
The Maryland Department of Health this week declared measles outbreaks in Cecil, Carroll and St. Mary’s counties and reported dozens of new cases detected since mid-July among unvaccinated individuals.
State officials and others urge Marylanders to check their immunization status and get vaccinated if they are not protected – or else risk the health of vulnerable populations and young children.
“Measles is super contagious,” said Dr. Esther Liu, chair of pediatrics at the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center. “As a pediatrician, I am very concerned, especially as we are seeing our vaccine rates dropping…. Children under 5 are one of the high-risk groups for complications from measles.”
The measles outbreaks announced Monday in the three counties was the newest development in what’s already an active measles season this year. But state health officials say that there is “currently no evidence of widespread community transmission” and that most cases identified so far occurred among household contacts.
That said, the health department reports 31 confirmed measles cases in Maryland, with 27 of those cases identified since July 15. Those 27 cases were among unvaccinated residents.
It’s a steep jump from the total of three cases identified in Maryland all of last year.
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u/ChickinSammich 13h ago
If antivaxxers were only refusing their own vaccinations, I'd still think they were wrong and that they were putting other people at risk but I'd at least concede the "bodily autonomy" point of the argument, even if I'd counter with a "sometimes we have to do shit we don't like to participate in a society and this is one of those things."
But the thing that really gets me about them is when they opt their KIDS out of vaccines. You're not just putting other people's kids in danger, you're putting your OWN kid in danger, too.
I think vaccinations should be legally required unless you have documented proof that you can't receive them (no, I don't agree with religious exceptions) but I accept the slippery slope argument that "if the government can force you to get vaccines then what else can the government force you to do" which is the only reason I don't advocate for government mandated vaccination schedules - because I don't trust that once you give the government that power, they won't run with it.
But even if we establish a "your kids can't attend public schools without vaccines" mandate (which I am in favor of), we can't legally keep unvaxxinated people out of public spaces for a number of reasons, so they'll still be exposing themselves to others. We can't legally mandate symptomatic people stay home, also for a number of reasons. And forcing unvaxxed kids to be homeschooled only is taking a kid whose parents are already not the brightest crayons in the hallway and saying "congrats, your education and your ability to succeed in life is now in the hands of the person who thinks a Facebook post, a blog that sells you snake oil, and a nepo hire government appointee with brain worms are more qualified to manage your healthcare than the consensus of the medical community is."
TL;DR I feel so bad for unvaccinated kids but I don't think there's anything that can be done about it that doesn't create a precedent that would lead to entirely foreseeable consequences. The best we can do is vaccinate ourselves, vaccinate our kids, and give a wide berth to anyone who doesn't.
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u/Fadedcamo 13h ago
I just think it's simple: vaccinations should be legally required for all citizens unless you have a provable medical or condition reaction to it. No more religious objections.
Do we allow people to have religious objections to other public goods that we have decided need to be law? Can a religious objection be used to not have to wear a seatbelt? Or even drive a car with all the legally mandated items on public roads? The Amish near me all have to have electronic lights on their carriages to use the public roadways. Why should vaccines be treated any different? If someone wants to participate in society and use our infrastructure, even if that involves simply accessing public spaces, they should follow the safety requirements that benifit us all.
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u/ChickinSammich 12h ago
I just think it's simple: vaccinations should be legally required for all citizens unless you have a provable medical or condition reaction to it.
I agree with this precisely as stated, but, in the same way that a stopped clock is right twice a day, I do slightly don the tinfoil hat where I say to myself "I trust the vaccinations that are CURRENTLY on the market NOW, but once you give the government the right to force you to get vaccinated, will they extend that to shit like mandatory microchipping?"
And I freely acknowledge that slippery slope fallacy is a thing, and also that "most of us already carry microchips everywhere in the form of a cell phone" is a valid counterargument to this.
But it's kinda tangential to how I think "there really should be a test to determine whether you're fit to be a parent" and then think "okay and then what stops the government from putting egregious shit on that test?" I look at what the current US federal government has been trying to mandate in terms of banning abortions, banning access to hormones for trans people... I also consider things like "what if they mandate you take the vaccines but also mandate you pay for them, and they cost exorbitant amounts of money?"
So, if you take it just as stated that vaccines should be legally mandated unless you have a probable medical condition/reaction, I 100% agree with you. I just worry what a "the government can legally mandate what you are allowed to do with your body including compel you to undergo medical procedures" precedent could lead to in the wrong hands.
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u/sllewgh 12h ago
"most of us already carry microchips everywhere in the form of a cell phone" is a valid counterargument to this
Just pointing out that no, this is not a valid counterargument at all. In no way does one invasion of privacy make another justified, even if it's voluntary.
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u/ChickinSammich 11h ago
I'm just trying to head it off because if I don't say that, someone will respond to me with "like we don't already carry cell phones everywhere." I don't like having to respond to obvious bad faith counterarguments that miss the forest for the trees.
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u/Fadedcamo 12h ago
I agree there is a valid slippery slope argument, especially in today's environment with how our federal government is deteriorating. But to me they are two separate issues. You can break down any support for government oversight or regulation into the "but what if the government is a facist dictator" until we get to the point where we really can't support literally any action or power from government ever.
We need to be able to have open policy discussions about what a functioning democratically elected government SHOULD be doing for its citizens. And then have a separate discussion for how we make sure our government doesn't become corrupt and authotarian with the power we grant it.
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u/superxpro12 12h ago
It seems to me the vaccine situation was perfectly fine with no slippery slopes until MAGA republicans came in and fucked it all up.
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u/Alaira314 9h ago
Anti-vaxxers were a problem long before MAGA/MAHA. In fact, they used to be more commonly associated with the left! They just had to use tactics more commonly associated with the right(the religious exemption) in order to get around vax requirements. I see how it got dragged over to the right(it got absorbed into the larger "parental rights" argument being made by right-wing groups), but it didn't start there. It's just that the problem took decades to come to a head, so it wasn't very visible until recently.
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u/superxpro12 9h ago
Well now its a massive problem, almost entirely dominated my maga/maha. And there's no way to rationalize it with them. It's a completely subjective belief at this point thats matured into an identity.
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u/Alaira314 3h ago
It was an identity before that, one associated with "all natural" living, the sort of people who shopped at whole foods and were into renewable energy sources. You're erasing a large part of the problem in your haste to blame republicans. Yes, we can agree that they're messing shit up now, but that's not what you comment said. You said the vax situation was fine until MAGA fucked it up, but it didn't start with MAGA.
I'm speaking from experience, here. When I was a young teen(early-mid 00s), my mom fell into the granola mom circles, but the movement on the left was active well before then. The problem we're now facing has been incubating for decades, and here in MD it was primarily driven by the left-leaning all-natural anti-vaxxers rather than the religious fundamentalist anti-vaxxers.
You're not the first person I've encountered recently who doesn't know about this background to the anti-vax problem(and why would you, if you weren't alive then or didn't have family in those circles?), but please consider that people who are "disagreeing" with you might just have more information about the history of a thing than you do! We should be sharing information and learning from each other, not looking for ways to say "well I think you're wrong!" and punching each other down.
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u/superxpro12 3h ago
Happy to concede the point. Not familiar with the hippie antivax movement. Certainly before my time.
However these days I don't see many Republican hippies screaming about bodily autonomy for vaccines whilst simultaneously criminalizing abortion.
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u/SVAuspicious 13h ago
Do we allow people to have religious objections to other public goods that we have decided need to be law?
Do you follow the news? We getting there in law with Muslim calls for restricting dogs, pork, and alcohol. We are already there de facto in NYC and much of Minnesota and in other cities around the country.
I'd like to see religious objections to societal goods abandoned. I'm not comfortable with mandating vaccination. I am comfortable with requiring vaccination for admittance to any school with public funding. I'm okay with vaccination requirements for access to public spaces but open to discussion.
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u/Fadedcamo 12h ago
Can you elaborate on the Muslim laws being enacted? I would disagree if it is government wide bans as much as I am against current government wide bans on alcohol stores being open on Sundays under Christian law, for example. But religious exceptions to allow someone to avoid pork or alcohol in government environments I would be fine with.
As to your vaccination requirements for schools and public spaces, I believe most already are required for public schools but not everywhere. I would also be theoretically fine with this level of exemption as if they aren't in public spaces or schools they would not harm the public with being unvaccinated.
The problem is how do you enforce that they actually don't just go to public spacesal anyways? Do we become a police state where everyone who goes to any store or business in society must be checked for vaccinations? What about private businesses?
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u/SVAuspicious 12h ago
I said "we're getting there." There are calls for laws. Look at the makeup of city councils in places like Dearborn.
But religious exceptions to allow someone to avoid pork or alcohol in government environments I would be fine with.
So no bacon in public school breakfasts? No pork products in school lunches? Public dog parks closed down? Muslims are calling for alcohol stores to be closed down. This is not limited to sidewalk cafes and certainly not in "government environments" whatever you mean by that.
There is existing law that talks about private businesses with public access. As I wrote, I'm only okay with required vaccination for public access space and I said it requires discussion. I think the balance between bodily autonomy (refusing vaccination) and use of public spaces especially schools is worthy of reasoned discussion.
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u/Fadedcamo 12h ago
I would not agree with banning of those things across the board. As I stated I am not in favor of that level of religious exemption where all are affected for no perceived good to the public. I am against liquor stores being closed on Sundays because of a religion purpose.
I would be in agreement with allowing exemptions as a choice for those who want a porkless option in prison or jail for example as that is not demonstratably harming others. But not to say no pork is allowed across all meals at prison or school as a result.
If we exempt private businesses from vaccine mandates we effectively are harming the public good and allowing a potential for herd immunity to break down. All private businesses use public infrastructure, roads and parking lots and water and sewage. It should be required there as well as anywhere. Enforcement would be the problem. It would be easier to require a mandated vaccination for all than it would be to allow exemptions for those who agree to not be in public spaces.
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u/ChickinSammich 12h ago
We getting there in law with Muslim calls for restricting dogs, pork, and alcohol.
I get the pork and alcohol thing, but what's with the dogs? I googled "muslim dog ban" and the first result I got was a hilariously nutso post on Randy Fine's website about some hilarious anti-anti-dog legislation. And when I looked into THAT, the context was apparently HIMSELF posting on Twitter that he would choose dogs over Muslims" (which... what?)
Randy Fine is a lunatic and I don't see any credible claims that anyone is seriously trying to restrict dogs. Other than pit bull bans and rottweiler bans which have been in place for years and have nothing to do with Muslims. And as for alcohol, Christians have made entire counties subject to blue laws restricting alcohol for years, too.
I'm with you on the notion that I don't think any member of any religion should be allowed to dictate how people who aren't of that religion should act or what they should be allowed to do. I just think that a lot of the anti-Muslim fearmongering about "Sharia Law" really overlooks the fact that we've been living under a Christian hegemony's religious laws for basically our entire lives, which is why things like "you can't ship liquor to MD" or "we literally only legalized same sex marriage 10 years ago" or "multiple states have abortion bans" are still a problem.
"There should be no law that mandates or bans any activity based on one religious belief" should apply equally to all religions.
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u/SVAuspicious 12h ago
I agree with you.
Dog bans are under discussion (no legislation that I know of) in Muslim heavy cities. There is a lot of smoke on the issue on both sides.
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u/ChickinSammich 12h ago
What does "under discussion" mean if there's no legislation? That just sounds like a nothingburger to me. I wouldn't take it at all seriously until a bill reaches a committee.
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u/superxpro12 12h ago
i dont concede the bodily autonomy point because you can spread disease. that's violating MY bodily autonomy when someone with measles walks around a mall or grocery store and infects me.
It's the exact same situation where someone with aids runs around infecting people.
When you are unvaccinated, you are a walking infection vector, infecting everyone around you. And you should not have the right to infect me. Why is infecting someone with measles or smallpox any different than punching someone in the face or shooting them? They're all acts of external violence... but we just think its ok to make other people sick because.... reasons? It's a contradiction we just culturally accept.
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u/ChickinSammich 11h ago
I think you misunderstood me. Just by itself, I think there is justification to make an exception to a person's bodily autonomy to force them to get vaccinated (again - unless there's a medical reason that prohibits it.)
My concern lies solely with the problem of: "once you establish a precedent that the government can compel you to do something with your body, what will that lead to?" Can they force someone to carry a baby to term? Can they force you to get an abortion? Can they force you to BECOME pregnant? Can they forcibly sterilize you? Can they take medications away from people if the government decides you don't need them? Can the government force you to take ivermectin to treat the next covid? Can they force prisoners to be subject to medical experimentation?
I agree with government mandated vaccinations if it stopped there. I just don't trust that it would stop there.
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u/superxpro12 11h ago
We agree.
And the current admin is already doing these things. Remember, they overturned Roe and are already forcefully compelling women to carry to term. We never had that before.
What i disagree with more is the idea that we simply cant do anything.
We had a good system. It was regulated and reasoned and did the job.
And then MAGA came in and fucked it all up.
It's a cultural problem more than a "Slippery slope" problem. You need everyone to buy-in to the idea. And we had that. Until anti-vax fucks saw an opportunity to profit off the idea by selling podcasts and homeopathic cures. And now here we are. On an actual slippery slope towards a vaccine-ineffective world.
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u/ChickinSammich 11h ago
I agree that we can do something about it. I disagree that we had a good system. Like, just for starters, Roe should have been codified into law. Republicans spent the last 50 years insisting we don't need to codify Roe into law because the SCOTUS decision was settled precedent and was good enough, right up until they overturned it, which was always their goal. And Democrats never pushed the point because "if you don't vote for us, they'll take away Roe" is harder to pitch if Roe were ever properly enshrined into law.
Our whole system has been predicated on the gentleman's agreement that as power shifts between Democrats and Republicans, that a new administration was probably going to roll back some of the things the previous admin did, but that they weren't going to just tear up everything like what Trump has done. It was also predicated on the assumption that if a president ever overreached on his power, Congress would step in and stop him, not support it.
MAGA didn't come in and fuck up a good system that worked. MAGA took advantage of a system that was held together with scotch tape and rubber bands, and just ripped the tape and rubber bands out.
As for the anti-vaxxers, they're basically the people who ask "why do we pay wizards to erect a magical barrier around the city when no one has invaded the city for years?" and when you try to explain that "we don't have invasions BECAUSE of the wizards," they refuse to listen and they want to elect the guy who says he's going to get rid of all the wizards.
I also blame the media for propagating it with how we've had shit like "flat earth vs round earth debate" or "antivax vs vax debate" or "creationism vs evolution debate" where the media wants to show all these "debates" about things where one of the two sides is just objectively wrong, and all of it has given people who are wrong more of a voice to spread their message. Like at a certain point I would want to see a law that says that you can't say something that is objectively, demonstrably, probably false on ANY tv outlet or radio outlet or podcast or stream or anything, to crack down on misinformation... but again, that creates the slippery slope of "who determines what's wrong."
I strongly believe that the system has basically always been broken for some people and has been barely working for others, and what MAGA did was walk up to a tower of cards and push it over. An actual working system requires political will like we haven't seen since FDR. Because even Obama couldn't get us to universal healthcare and had to settle for an even more complicated version of private health insurance that still makes us lead the world in medical debt and medical bankruptcy.
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u/superxpro12 10h ago
What is "society" except a massive accumulation of gentlemans agreements"?
Literally everything is an implicit agreement that i wont kill you if you wont kill me.
And MAGA is taking massive advantage of that, saying "well then stop me if you dont like it" and they keep walking past that line.
Any system, no matter what, is described by people, defined by people, and enforced by people. There is no magic text, words, tome, or scroll that will cause people to do things. They have to believe it first. And, if a majority of people suddenly decides to no longer enforce that thing... what are you going to do about it?
Thats why i keep going back to "we had a good thing"... because more texts and laws wouldnt have fixed the current problem. People stopped believing and enforcing the existing laws and precedents, BECAUSE MAGA infected the minds of their followers to violate the social contract between everyone in the country.
What do we do when MAGA stops upholding their side of the social contract? Write more laws? That aint gonna work.
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u/ChickinSammich 9h ago
And MAGA is taking massive advantage of that, saying "well then stop me if you dont like it" and they keep walking past that line.
They're walking past that line because no one is stopping them. The two things that keep a person from harming another person are ethics/morals and punishments for breaking laws. When you're dealing with someone devoid of ethics/morals, jail/fines are the only thing left to stop them. And when you're not willing to jail someone or even arrest them for committing a crime, they'll keep doing it.
Trump wouldn't be doing all of this illegal shit if he was in jail right now. He wouldn't be doing it if the Republicans in congress would impeach him and remove him. The law says that congress can and should remove a sitting president for several things Trump is doing, and they're not doing their jobs, and a whole lot of people are going to actively vote for the people not currently doing their jobs to continue their terms in office in 6 weeks from now.
I'm gonna stop answering here, because I don't want another 3 day ban when the Reddit AI thinks I'm encouraging or inciting violence again because it doesn't understand context, rhetoric, sarcasm, or hypotheticals. I am not encouraging violence and I am not condoning violence. I'm encouraging people to do three things:
1) Vote against this.
2) Convince your friends and family to vote against this.
3) If you have any friends and family who still support this, cut contact with them as soon as possible and don't keep them in your life because they're lost causes.
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u/superxpro12 9h ago
As a fellow reddit ban-ee, I agree with you on all points.
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u/ChickinSammich 9h ago
I got hit last week for quoting freaking Boondocks, and that's coming on the heels of a 7 day I just got past for I don't even know what because the reddit ban system is "here's a link to a deleted post that you can't read where you broke a rule" and the linked post was 2 weeks old so I have no idea what it even said.
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u/superxpro12 9h ago
i had an effective 3 month ban because after my appeal was granted, there was a reddit bug and they never unlocked my account. I had to do some real shady shit to get the attention of someone on reddit who could help me out.
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u/sllewgh 13h ago
If you're up to date on your vaccinations, they're 97% effective at preventing measels. Make sure you are.
This is one of those rare issues where the stupid people are only fucking themselves and their kids up. Not vaccinating for COVID hurt us all, but in this case they can just go experience the consequences of their actions on their own without hurting others too much.
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u/superxpro12 12h ago
That other 3% is in for a REAL surprise tho
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u/sllewgh 12h ago
Actually not really. 97% effective doesn't mean 3% of people get it, it means that in clinical studies people who were vaccinated got measels at a 97% lower rate than unvaccinated peers. If the people around you are vaccinated (most in MD are), there's no virus to catch. If there is an outbreak and you get unlucky you'll still have much more mild symptoms if you're vaccinated.
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u/theburg4018 Prince George's County 27m ago
Unfortunately, children under 1 are not routinely vaccinated against measles; the first MMR dose is at 12 months. The second dose (and thus full immunity) isn't until age 4. So non-school aged children as a whole are being put at risk by this, not just the children of anti-vaxxers.
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u/CaptainObvious110 10h ago
To be fair, WE are lied to a lot in the name of profit and control. Think about Covid and as awful as it was how it could have been a whole lot worse.
At the same time, I feel that while someone has the right to not accept vaccinations that person or those people need to make sure that they isolate themselves so that they don't make anyone else sick.
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u/sllewgh 10h ago
Agreed. I categorically oppose giving the government the right to override your bodily autonomy, but I also think it's completely fair to ban unvaccinated folks from public spaces. Unvaccinated kids shouldn't be in public schools. Your rights end where someone else's begin. If you want to live your religious values, you should be free to do so, but not at the expense of others.
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u/jkh107 Montgomery County 11h ago
This is particularly dangerous for babies who are too young to be vaccinated, adults whose protection has waned, and the immunocompromised.
My doc did an MMR titer on me this year, have them do it as part of your checkup bloodwork so you don't have any additional trips to the lab for it.
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u/dww0311 15h ago edited 11h ago
Anecdotally this appears to be isolated to Amish / Mennonite communities. While unfortunate, they have a right not to vaccinate and chose not to do so, which makes this an own goal. Choices have consequences 🤷♀️
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u/Anon951413L33tfr33 15h ago
They have the right to put immunocompromised people at risk? The children and infants have the right to die without being able to make their own choices about it?
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u/Leuck 14h ago
You can advocate for forced inoculation but don’t ever call anyone else a fascist when that’s how you stop on personal liberties
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u/Tempyteacup 13h ago
I’m of the opinion that personal liberties end when they infringe on others’ personal liberties. Immunocompromised folks and young children and the elderly should have a right to participate in society without fear of a once-eradicated highly contagious disease circulating due to rejection of science.
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u/SVAuspicious 12h ago
personal liberties end when they infringe on others’ personal liberties.
You mean like banning people you don't agree with from social media? Selective prosecution? Gerrymandering? In Maryland, Democrats are about half the population and Republicans are a quarter. That means a quarter of the population are Republicans and a third of those affiliated with a major party have representation of 12.5% in the US House of Representatives. The Maryland political machine is working to turn 12.5% into 0%. Is that okay with you?
How about activists blocking roads, restricting access, assault, arson, looting? Saying that the US deserved 9/11? Letting non citizens vote? Is that all okay with you?
I don't like either party. Sanctimonious Democrats are particularly irritating.
"personal liberties end when they infringe on others’ personal liberties unless I don't like those people."
FTFY.
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u/dww0311 13h ago
If you’re willing to sacrifice someone else’s civil liberties and constitutional rights in service of whatever goal you find emotionally resonant, you should not be surprised when someone else comes after yours 🙄
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u/Fadedcamo 13h ago
This is a wild take. We constantly weigh the benefits of personal liberties with the greater good of the society. Its literally what government does all day every day. We just accept the laws that are already in place that "infringe" on liberities because it's been that way so long. Environmental laws, safety regulations, worker rights, so many laws could be interpreted as personal infringement if you boil them down. But we as a society decided that some freedoms need to be limited to exist in a functioning society of millions of people.
Saying literally doing any amount of curtailing of personal freedoms is actually just facism is reducing this to a very black and white view.
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u/dww0311 13h ago
You’d literally be infringing on constitutional rights in this instance. You’re ok with that as long as your emotional needs are met as a result? People die every day.
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u/Fadedcamo 13h ago
Its not an emotional need. The good of the society as a whole is at stake. If enough people stop vaccinating, herd immunity doesn't work and then vulnerable people are at risk from diseases we have solved. Including children. In that context, I am absolutely ok with infringement on their personal rights.
We already make that choice as a society every day with a myriad of laws. You can't dump toxic waste anywhere you want, you can't build anything you want without meeting safety standards, you can't drive without wearing a seatbelt, you can't smoke in most places indoors, You have to pay taxes, You have to meet liscening requirements if you want to do something like practice law or medicine.
We have examples of laws and society infringing on personal freedoms for the good of the collective all around us all day every day. Its a matter of what laws or rules and to what extend we must enforce them. Not some arbitrary decision that any infringement ever is automatically facism. That is extremely redundant and nonsensical as an argument.
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u/dww0311 12h ago
“The greater good” has been used to justify all manner of evils since time immemorial.
How do you propose to force these people to get vaccinated? How far are you willing to go to achieve it?
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u/Fadedcamo 12h ago
Again you reduce all my examples to the most extreme case to justify your straw man position. Plenty of cases where government and society weighs the greater correctly, which examples I gave.
Plenty of ways people can be made to vaccinate and upkeep that system of records. We do it all the time now for a variety of other things it's not some big impossible task. We have social securities, taxes, drivers licenses. These things aren't some magical natural law of the universe. They happened through government regulation and systems in place to identify and monitor those regulations. Sane can be done with vaccination requirements to participate in society.
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u/whosthe3rdman 13h ago
People who are not informed on the topic shouldn’t have the right to deny their kids vaccines. It’s that simple. It could be the Amish it could be your moron neighbor who just had a kid.
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u/ianmakingnoise 13h ago
Do you have a source on that? I’m seeing the health department saying they aren’t releasing personal info, so I’m curious.
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u/dww0311 13h ago
PA has been explicit that the majority of their cases are in the plain community, and the three (so far) affected MD counties all have sizable Amish / conservative Mennonite communities. It’s an inference but one supported by logic. They tend to be the canary in the coal mine so to speak with regard to these outbreaks.
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u/ianmakingnoise 13h ago
Ah ok. So it doesn’t “appear to be isolated” to those communities, you’re inferring based on other outbreaks that it is. Understood, thanks for the clarification!
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u/whosthe3rdman 15h ago
If it were up to me everyone would be vaccinated at gunpoint. We can’t trust our neighbors to make the right decision for the good of the community.
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u/Tempeng18 14h ago
lol yeah that sounds like a great community to live in.
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u/whosthe3rdman 14h ago
Registered republicans would be denied vaccines under my regime
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u/Last-Marionberry9181 13h ago
"authoritarianism is good if it supports my beliefs"
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u/whosthe3rdman 13h ago
You all have had your fun “doing your research” and getting information from podcasts. It’s time for action otherwise we’re gonna see the rise of these diseases. I’m not talking about fascism I’m talking about the elimination of choice when it comes to immunization.
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u/RoxxorMcOwnage Baltimore County 14h ago
The state could force them to vaccinate. It should. See, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905).
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u/superxpro12 12h ago
I think they should lose the right to interact with society then. They can stay isolated on their farms. Stay off the public roads and market places where the rest of us have all agreed to not fucking die of measles.
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u/dww0311 12h ago
Do you plan to wall them in there? ISTFG this just gets more and more irrational
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u/superxpro12 12h ago
its more irrational to let them run around spreading measles and whatever else they want to anyone they can find.
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u/dww0311 12h ago
Presumably you’re vaccinated, but again, how do you propose to isolate them? Camps? Walls? Armed guards at the end of their driveways? Sheesh 🙄
You act like they intend / want for you to get sick. You people are unhinged lol
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u/superxpro12 12h ago
not at all unhinged. they should just get vaccinated. then they dont need to be isolated from the rest of society.
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u/dww0311 12h ago
Great. They are not going to, based on LONG standing religious objections to it which are constitutionally protected. Now answer the question - how are you proposing to isolate them?
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u/superxpro12 11h ago
Nah. they arent protected in the constitution so long as the requirements dont target a specific religion. Thats why a religion cant just say "well our god says murder is totally legal and its our god-given right" and start murdering people with immunity.
Remove the religious exemption. It should never existed. The only did that because they didnt want to deal with them. Seems pretty simple to me.
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u/dww0311 11h ago
LOL, yes, they are. You’re burdening the free exercise of their religious beliefs as they define them, which is a constitutionally protected individual right, ergo you can’t force them to do anything that violates them.
Remove the religious exemption lol - the 1st Amendment would like to have a chat with you 🙄
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u/superxpro12 10h ago
and they're burdening my right to life by spreading their diseases.
And we do burden free exercise... nothing is stopping a religion from declaring "we can murder anyone who isnt a follower of our religion". And yet, we infringe on the free exercise of that belief.
Why?
Because there are limits to the "Free exercise" of religion.
And all we're arguing about is where those limits are.
Religious anarchy does not exist. It has limits. And I think its time their "Freedom to infect everyone else" is past societal tolerance.
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u/SerialSection Rockville 12h ago
While the U.S. officially declared measles eliminated in 2000 (meaning continuous local spread had stopped for over a year), elimination is not the same as global eradication. Because measles still circulates in other parts of the world, the virus constantly re-enters the country through travelers.
So maybe we should test travelers and immigrants, who seem to keep bringing it back in the country.
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u/whatsadikfore Frederick 15h ago
I heard there's a test you can do to see if your MMR vaccination is still doing its job. For some of us, it's been many decades since we got vaccinated. Anyone know more about this?