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.
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.”