Abbey Rutkowski

HSP-1

Mrs. Cowhy

4/4/2019

“Hundreds vaccinated since measles emergency declared in Rockland County”

Since the late 1960’s a measles virus vaccine has been available. The vaccine has been

proven to prevent measles, mumps, and rubella. These diseases have been proven to be deadly

and can spread rapidly. Now in the 21st Century, parents are deciding to not get their children

vaccinated. Now that parents are deciding to not get their children vaccinated, the disease is

occurring more and more. In Rockland County, New York had to take the drastic measures of

banning every minor who is not vaccinated from an public area. The public areas consist of

schools, malls, restaurants, and every enclosed public place that an infected person could infect

another person. Residents of this county have been outraged by this ban, but it is one of the only

ways to keep the disease under control and not spread nationwide, which seems like it could

spread nationwide at any time. During 2018 their was around 400 documented cases of measles

and as of this year, 2019, there have been 333. Among those 333 cases they happened in the first

3 months of 2019. Also there have been more vaccinations since October of 2018, they have

recorded a record number of 17,400 measle vaccinations being administered. The vaccinations

will not work if your sick or even sick with measles. Some of the symptoms that people could be

facing that are infected measles can be:fever, dry cough, sore throat, runny nose, inflamed eyes,

and all of these symptoms could just be the start of the disease. In this article they also say that

people can be infected with the disease 4 days before they start showing symptoms and could

possibly infect others with those 4 unknown days of being infected.

 Measles, mumps, and rubidia, are awful, contagious, but also somewhat preventable

diseases with the choice of a shot. To me; getting a shot to prevent these severe diseases is worth

it. My mom told me a few days ago that, “As a mother, it was also my job when you were a baby

to protect you in every way that I could, and getting the measles vaccine was a way that I could

prevent you from those diseases. I may have not always been the best mom but I sure as heck

always made sure to protect you and your brother.”. My mom saying these words really made me

open to the fact as of why other people do not vaccinate their children. I now realize that children

are not getting vaccinated because of religious beliefs or because some people do not believe in

science or getting a measles shot. To me it would be well worth the shot, taking a risk and

actually preventing myself in just one way of not getting measles, which is a undeniably super

contagious disease. This year has had almost as many outbreaks as last year in total, which is

bizarre to me because I think that everyone should be getting the shot. I do think that as a parent,

I would be doing every precautionary thing that I could. This world is full of bigger evils, and

some other diseases like cancer are not preventable. Also, if I was a parent and I did not give my

child the measles shot, and god forbid that they had gotten measles, I would never be able to

forgive myself because I do have the shot, so most likely I wouldn’t get it, but my child would.

To me that statement is just very selfish and not something that a real mother would do, real

mothers do everything in their power to protect their children, they are “mama bears”. I think

that not immunizing your children is very wrong and every child should be vaccinated to prevent

the spread of disease.

 Welch, A. (2019, March 29). Hundreds vaccinated since measles emergency declared in

Rockland County. Retrieved April 2, 2019, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/measles-

outbreak-hundreds-of-vaccines-given-since-emergency-declared-in-rockland-county/