Canada Has Lost Its Measles Elimination Status ⇥ cbc.ca

Jennifer Lee, CBC News:

Pointing to the 1,956 cases Alberta has reported since its outbreaks began in March, [Dr. James] Talbot said Alberta bears a significant amount of responsibility for Canada losing its elimination status.

He’s one of a number of doctors and scientists who have been highly critical of the provincial government’s response to the measles outbreaks, saying messaging on the importance of immunization and the dangers of measles was not strong enough to rein in the outbreaks early on.

Alberta may have a 12% share of Canada’s population, but it has a 38% share of its cases of measles. Cases are predominantly located in the rural northern and southern extremes of the province, and one baby died last month. Truly shameful.

It is somewhat unrelated, but I booked my winter round of vaccinations today, and it was frustrating. Last year, I had a choice of pharmacies in walking distance from my house. This year, the province has decided to make COVID vaccinations available only from community health centres — there are eight in our city of a million-and-a-half people — and, unless you have certain preexisting conditions, they cost $100. This is not the measles vaccine, which remains free and widely available, but it speaks to the relatively recent state of hostility toward vaccines.

I will continue to proselytize Brian Deer’s “The Doctor Who Fooled the World” to anyone who will listen.