Parents choosing not to vaccinate their children

[MidnightPatrol]

A child has died in Liverpool as part of an outbreak of measles. 17 are currently hospitalised with it in the city, as part of a wider outbreak.

73% of children in Liverpool are vaccinated against measles - vs an England average of 84%.

A rate of 95% immunisation is required for herd immunity. No child in the UK needs to be getting measles - we can vaccinate against it.

In Liverpool, there is a risk of a widespread measles outbreak due to this low rate of immunisation - it is very infectious, so the risk to the population is significant.

If you are a parent that doesn’t get your child vaccinated, why?

Should the government not be using further incentives to encourage people to take up vaccination - are a third of Liverpudlians really against vaccinating their children?

Should non-vaccinated children be limited from accessing nursery or schools (as in other countries)?

Yes.
Pronounced eeem.
Of course no one at the time knew how it was spread or what it was in terms of germ theory.
Some vague notion of bad airs.
Or just the devil at work.
It is now thought that the village was probably infected by insects brought in on bales of cloth by a travelling tailor from London.
It was the only place outside London to be ravaged by the Plague in 1665.

There is a very good historical novel (supposedly YA but really for anyone) about Eyam and the plague: 'A Parcel of Patterns' by Jill Paton Walsh.

I used to teach this book. I had a whole workbook with original document etc in it too. Secondary English. It’s an amazing story and I find Eyam itself a little unsettling. There’s an atmosphere there.

I thought Eyam was common knowledge.

Cliff notes for those who don't know.

The village is in Derbyshire and in 1665 one of the villagers did of plague (I think it was a tailor and that would fit with the theory of it arriving with cloth).

There was no doctor and not a lot of education apart from two church ministers. The ministers (one retired) decided to ask people to quarantine the village.

Church services were moved to an outside area so people could have distance between them. People were told to bury their own family close to where they died rather than using the cemetery. They knew that distance stopped disease spreading but not why or how.

At the border of the village people left money in pots of vinegar and in return the people from surrounding villages took the money and left goods to be collected later.

The plague took an enormous toll on the village but the village survived and the plague did not spread to other villages.

Even today there is an annual service in the same place the villagers in 1665/6 prayed.

Many current day villages are descended from the survivors and a few years ago a TV company did a programme about the descendants who were asked for DNA samples.

jenjenkinsthree.com/2021/07/13/the-mystery-of-immunity-the-guardian-genes-of-eyams-survivors/

Can you remember what the programme about the descendants was called @sashh ? It completely passed me by and I’d be really interested to try to find it somewhere.

I am from Derbyshire. The thing I remember from learning about it is that the self imposed isolation went on for about 15 months. I think about 250 villagers died in that time. We visited the stones just outside the village where supplies would be dropped off. Amazingly intelligent people who realised they could make their mark on the spread of the dreadful illness without fully understanding how or why.

Either Secrets of the Dead or Secrets of the Damned I think.

Edited to add: This might be it. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt7223794/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl

I’m becoming irritated by the sheer number of people who think it’s appropriate to put laughing emojis on posts on FB that talk about measles outbreaks and associated deaths. Have people really become so thick after COVID? IIRC, Liverpool was a hotbed for conspiracy theories around Covid with a lot of businesses refusing to follow lockdown rules and believing that they could invoke some outdated rule from 1010 or something and come out with some nonsense phrase which absolved them from having to follow the law 🙄.

I hate some people right now for their utter stupidity about a lot of things, not just health issues.

If you’re one of those who doesn’t believe in vaccination and your child gets really ill, where will they eventually end up? In the hospital where presumably you’d want them to receive medical care. Would you trust the doctors then? You’d have little choice….

I'm glad you posted that, I couldn't remember.

"Miriam, look at this. There's a chap here on YouTube who's discovered something that every single scientist and globally-recognised expert in the field has failed to notice at any point in the last hundred years. We'd better start acting on his advice forthwith."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes. Because I understand what this chap's saying but I don't understand the scientists at all."

my mam once said it’s such a privilege to have access to vaccinations. I never thought of it like that, but she remembers a time when the consequences of these diseases were evident. I had mumps two years ago and it was the most ill I’ve ever been, despite having had a vaccination. Can’t imagine what it would be like if you weren’t

"Miriam, listen to this. Our friends John and Jane have had it confirmed that baby Olly has suffered permanent brain damage from those vaccinations.
He will need looking after for life. John and Jane are devastated and don't know where to turn!"

"Omg, are they sure it's from the vaccine?"

"Yes, the hospital have confirmed it. And then there was Kathy we met 2 years ago who was growing up with vaccine damage and needs a fulltime carer.
I'm so afraid to get our baby vaccinated now. I know everyone says vaccine damage is extremely rare, but what if our DC was the one?"

Would you rather your DC had a risk of a vaccine side effect or the risk of a measles side effect given the later is much more likely than the former ?

someone died because of wearing a seat belt they couldn’t get out of the car because of it - does that mean we should stop wearing seat belts ? No because loads of people have been saved with the seat belt

What you've got there is the anti-seatbelt argument...

"Put your seatbelt on. It could save your life."

"Well, I know this woman and she was in a car crash on the M1 and she wasn't wearing a seatbelt and she was thrown clear and the rescue man said that if she'd been in the car she'd've been killed so actually the seatbelt might not save your life it could kill you."

"Except that literally thousands of lives have been saved by wearing seatbelts. Thousands."

"Yeah, but what if you're like that woman? I mean - it could go either way."

This is an interesting article on the measles surge in London https://dispatch-media.com/the-london-mums-bringing-back-measles/

I found some articles from around 2004 in papers like the guardian where doctors were urging parents not to even consider measles parties. So that was obviously an idea doing the rounds.

We decided not to vaccinate because we knew someone with vaccine damage.

Now our child is deaf and blind and is in ICU with encephalitis.

Gosh I’m so sorry