Over 150 unvaccinated students in South Carolina quarantining after measles exposure

[riversedge]

Source: abcnews


The outbreak has grown to at least eight measles cases, officials said.

By Youri Benadjaoud October 12, 2025, 8:05 PM



....................

At least 153 students from two schools in South Carolina are under quarantine for 21 days due to measles exposures, state health officials announced.

The quarantined students were not vaccinated, officials added. The schools are both located in Spartanburg County: Global Academy of South Carolina and Fairforest Elementary. The outbreak has grown to at least eight measles cases, with a total of 11 cases reported overall in the state this year.




It comes amid declining MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination rates nationwide. Over 95% of kindergarteners were vaccinated with the MMR shot prior to the pandemic. That figure has now fallen to 92.5% in the most recent school year.

The lower rates leave an estimated 286,000 kindergarteners without protection from measles..................




Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/150-unvaccinated-students-south-carolina-quarantining-after-measles/story?id=126459506

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Link to tweet

[riversedge]

1. "Nation's new top vaccine advisory panel set to meet on new guidelinesA critical CDC vaccine panel is set for today, wei

This is from the article:




Nation's new top vaccine advisory panel set to meet on new guidelinesA critical CDC vaccine panel is set for today, weighing recommendations on shots from measles to COVID. This comes after the former CDC director testified at Congress.
Nation's new top vaccine advisory panel set to meet on new guidelines
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/video/nations-new-top-vaccine-advisory-panel-set-meet-125694614

[hatrack]

2. "But Muh Freedumb!!!!"

[llmart]

3. The stupid runs deep in South Carolina.

These are the people who kept voting for Lindsay Graham. In the meantime, the US continues its decline into third world status.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

10. Good point about third world status.

One big thing that separates developed nations from third world underdeveloped nations is a comprehensive vaccination program available to all of their citizens at little or no cost. The U.S. is playing with fire here.

[dedl67]

17. The US and other developed countries hoarded vaccine during the Covid-19 pandemic

Much Covid vaccine went unused in the US while millions died in underdeveloped nations.

[llmart]

23. I think Jared had something to do with that if I remember correctly.

Speaking of him and his fruity wife, I saw a clip of the so-called peace treaty process and they panned to the audience and there was Jared and Iwanka. Why are they there?

[mdbl]

12. I think we passed the continuing stage

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Give them the GOP Darwin Medal

Survival-of-the-fittest, even if some never make it.

[irisblue]

5. Sigh.

[AllyCat]

6. Hey, why bother quarantining? These nuts will now

Rage against keeping their kids home with a deadly disease. They always say that the best way to give lifelong immunity is to contract measles because they don’t love their kids much.

[progree]

7. "Minnesota's measles case count jumps to 20, with most unvaccinated children", CBS, 10/12/25

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minnesota-measles-cases-jump-to-20/

. . . When you look at Minnesota's overall cases ((in this context, meaning the 20 cases -progree)), most are unvaccinated children who have not traveled, but have been in close contact with an adult family member who had. Eighteen out of the 20 measles cases are children, the health department reports.

. . . more than 1,500 people have contracted the virus so far this year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

. . . About one in five kids are hospitalized when they have measles. In rare cases, it can be fatal.

"It can cause encephalitis or brain swelling. And it's very, very uncomfortable," said Hancock-Allen.

. . . As of Friday, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services has reported 36 measles cases so far this year. All were unvaccinated.

As for the Minnesota 20, the article does not give the percentage that were unvaccinated, to save people the trouble of looking for that statistic and not finding.

[OldBaldy1701E]

8. I feel that 'most' says enough. (n/t)

[progree]

18. I'm just curious about the percentage anyway

Last edited Mon Oct 13, 2025, 01:22 PM - Edit history (6)

From the article:

"It is an extremely effective vaccine, so about 93% on the first dose and 97% effective on the second dose," she said.

So, if, for example, 40% of the Minnesota cases were vaccinated and 60% were not, that would still be 'most were unvaccinated', but it would be way outside the expected probability.

The Wisconsin statistic that all 36 cases were unvaccinated actually is a bit of an outlier in the other direction -- even with a 97% effectiveness rate. The chance of that statistically is 33%, with a 67% chance of 1 or more of the cases having been vaccinated.

Nobody here is arguing that MMR vaccinations are not very very effective. Some people are just interested in the numbers and egghead stuff like probablility and statistics, and some are not, and that's OK, DU is a diverse community. and we're a big tent. It happens.

Edited to add Actually, it's more than just an egghead exercise. If, for example, 40% of the 20 cases were vaccinated, it would be so far outside the expected probability that an investigation would probably be undertaken as to why. Bad batches? A mutation? Statistical analysis is used to find potential problems.

Edited to add after a couple of comments:

I have doubts about my statistical look at the Wisconsin cases. Although I've had about 4 university level statistical courses, and hundreds of hours of self-study, those were decades and decades ago. I'm also impressed by books like "Innumeracy" by John Allen Paulos, and by other counter-intuitive examples, where people can go astray.

In the Wisconsin cases, I'd add that even calling it "a bit of an outlier" was a bit too strong, even IF I happened to be right that there was only a 33% chance of that happening. To clarify, that's not way out there. Rolling a six-sided die will result in a "5" or a "6"   33% of the time, hardly a rare or noteworthy result,

I am very much unconvinced by arguments that 36 out of 36 cases being unvaccinated (and 0% vaccinated) is a "quite high" likelihood, while at the same time it is not unlikely or particular noteworthy if there was another state where 40% of their cases had been vaccinated.

I'm still interested in the percentage of the Minnesota cases, and I don't understand why anyone wouldn't be. Gathering information and studying as I go is part of my learning process, and if that makes me different and awful, well it happens.

And as I said, a highly unusual result may indicate a problem, e.g. bad vaccine batches or that a somewhat vaccine-resistant new mutation has developed. While a "who cares" attitude -- as long as vaccinated cases are still the minority -- may be OK for a message board, I would be horrified if that was the attitude among infectious disease statisticians and professionals.

In my first post in my thread, my motive was to save people time who might be curious about the percentage too -- "As for the Minnesota 20, the article does not give the percentage that were unvaccinated, to save people the trouble of looking for that statistic and not finding."

I'm so sorry that I tried to save people time, or naively assumed that anyone else besides me would care.

[IbogaProject]

21. That leaves out that the unvaccinated are clustered

They are clustered within families and often are in social circles with other unvaccinated. So in those groups each unvaxed is more likely to transmit. And we dont know the specifics of that "protection" percentage.

[yardwork]

22. I don't understand why you are making up numbers.

You made up a series of theoretical percentages and then jumped to assumptions see in your made-up figures.

You're also misapplying statistics here. The chances of a group of anti-vaxxers having 36 unvaccinated kids is quite high. If the community is opposed to vaccines, most or all of the children won't be vaccinated. They may be Mennonites, right-wing Christians, or woo woo lefty antivaxxers.

There's also an issue of viral load. If a community is mostly unvaccinated and a lot of individuals get sick at once, everybody is being exposed to the virus over and over. That makes it more likely that they will get sick, even if they are vaccinated. And babies too young to have been fully vaccinated are especially at risk,

[mgardener]

9. Wait till parents

Start losing time from work
2 + weeks is a long time.

[Warpy]

11. Good. There is nothing like having a kid unexpectedly home to inconvenience parents

especially when they find out day care and even sitters aren't options. That's if the kid escapes getting sick.

Maybe seeing the vaccination as preventing inconvenience to parents is at least as important as having it prevent disability or death for their children. The latter doesn't seem to be penetrating those cement skulls out there.

[riversedge]

16. Only when it starts to affect ordinary, regular folks will they be upset.

[Gimpyknee]

13. RFK Jr asks "We're any of the boys with measles circumcised?"

[GiqueCee]

14. The Shame of the Kennedys...

... IS a disease. Send him packing by whatever means necessary. Our children's lives are at stake, and they're worth more than RFK the Lesser.

[Scrivener7]

15. Completely avoidable. Hope none of them die or have horrible lasting effects.

But probably some will. And for no good reason.

[llmart]

24. Back when I was a child, before the vaccine...

I contracted measles as did my six siblings. Parents were told there was a chance it could cause blindness in some people. My parents were poor and rarely did we get to go to a doctor, but I clearly remember my parents taking me to a doctor for some reason (I don't remember any of my siblings going). I thought I was special since it was just me. The doctor gave me some cheap sunglasses to wear and told my mother to put me in a dark room with the shades pulled. I had to sleep in another room because the area where I slept was too bright.

I have no idea if it's rel;ated or not, but I was diagnosed with macular degeneration at the early age of 57.

[Scrivener7]

29. I'm so sorry. Can you imagine voluntarily bringing that on your children?

[llmart]

31. No, I can't

When both of my children were born, I made damned sure they got all the recommended vaccines. I also remember the polio epidemic. One girl in my class was in an iron lung. She did survive but came back to school with braces on her legs and a permanent limp. Most parents were thrilled when the Salk vaccine was made available.

[Scrivener7]

32. I narrowly missed all of that. My brother talks about the kids lining up at school for the

polio vax. Three of my older siblings got the measles and the mumps, but the vaccines for them were approved when I was little, so I got them.

There was a rush to get all of them for the younger kids in my family. And every other family I grew up with, because they knew what those diseases could do.

[llmart]

33. You're lucky to have gotten them.

I had the measles, German measles, mumps, chicken pox. I don't remember having whooping cough but my youngest brother did. We all missed a lot of school whenever we were sick and sometimes half the class was out. My two children were born before there was a chicken pox vaccine, so they both had that.

Because of the era I grew up in and the fact that money was really tight or nonexistent in my family, I had no vaccinations except for the polio ones, and that may only be because they were given out in school for free, not because my parents were anti-vax.

[Scrivener7]

34. Weird thing: I had a bad case of chicken pox in my twenties. I had to get my titers

done when I went back to school after that, and was found to have no immunity to chicken pox, even though I had it. So I got the vaccine. Then I had to get the titers done again when I was preparing for hospital rotations as part of my training, and AGAIN, I had no immunity and had to get the shot again.

I just hope the shingles vaccine I got takes!

[Hotler]

19. Remember when the right came unglued over COVID lockdowns? Where is their anger now? nt

[Paladin]

20. I'm an old man, so my health isn't much of an issue, anymore.

But if any of my grandchildren become ill on account of RFK Jr.'s brain-dead anti-vax policies, I'm going to be very, very unhappy...

[ck4829]

25. Not good.

Not good at all

[Blues Heron]

26. Gross, stay away from filthy diseased unvaxed magats- they don't care about their own health let alone others

[LisaL]

27. Make measles great again.

It seems to be working.

[twodogsbarking]

28. Where I grew up they called such people "'dumb asses". They were smarter than they sounded.

[Solly Mack]

30. They wouldn't let their child be the stinky kid in class but they're OK w/ their child being the disease vector kid.

Cootie kids. Classroom Biohazards. Mump lumps. Measle weasels. Pox Tox babies.

I'd rather be the stinky kid.