2,300 unvaccinated students may not be allowed back to class, Seattle Public Schools warn

[Omaha Steve]

Source: USA Today

By Jordan Culver

Seattle Public Schools has informed parents that unvaccinated students will not be allowed to return to class after a January deadline, and is making free clinics available to get students' immunization records up to date.

The district posted a notice on Dec. 20 informing parents of the decision, citing Washington state law and the state's recently-passed bill that removes the "personal" and "philosophical" options to exempt children from the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine.

Students have until Jan. 8 to get updated immunization records or they'll be excluded from attending school. Any students who miss days of school due to immunization requirements will have their absences recorded as unexcused.

Seattle Public Schools is hosting free immunization clinics to get students ready ahead of the deadline. One was last week. The second is on Monday. A third will take place Jan. 3. Students with Seattle Public Schools have been on winter break since Dec. 23 and return to school Jan. 6, according to the district's calendar.


Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2019/12/29/seattle-schools-parents-unvaccinated-students-cant-come-class/2770246001/

[Farmer-Rick]

1. Wow that's a lot of kids left unvaccinated.

No wonder they had an outbreak.

I may reconsider moving there. At least until the rate of vaccination goes up.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. School District has 55,000 students.

2,300 unvaccinated students is about 4%. Herd Immunity threshold is around 85-95% depending on the illness in question.

4% unvaccinated isn't great, but it's not the end of the world either. Yes we can do better. But looking around the country, ~96% is actually quite high.

Although New York does not allow personal belief vaccine exemptions, at least 125 private schools in New York City had vaccination rates below 90%. Even more shocking, 37 schools had vaccination rates below 70% and 9 schools had rates between 18 and 41%. It is hard to believe that you can get vaccination rates that low with just medical and religious exemptions, especially when New York typically doesn't make it easy to get a religious vaccine exemption.

https://www.verywellfamily.com/school-vaccination-and-exemption-rates-2633734

[Farmer-Rick]

30. Did you see some of those lower than 50% vaccination rates?

Last edited Tue Dec 31, 2019, 08:04 PM - Edit history (1)

At your link, there were counties with over 70% exemption rate. Geez an outbreak was just bound to happen. It amazes me measles isn't worse.

You know the second outbreak of chickenpox you get is shingles. Well my uncle got it and everywhere I went in East TN, I heard stories about someone with a horrible case of shingles. It was like there was an outbreak of shingles spreading through the community. Which of course can't be because your 2nd outbreak is suppose to be due to stress, or a worn down immune system. You are not actually catching the chickenpox again.

Shingles is the leading cause of suicide due to pain. Get your shingles vaccination too you Baby Boomers....I'm a boomer and got my vaccination to avoid the deadly pain.

[AtheistCrusader]

33. In the face of such easily preventable diseases, it's mind-boggling.

Some days I look around and just don't understand anything we do. Don't understand any of our priorities.

[NickB79]

34. Measles wipes your immune system's memory to previous infections

Which is why shingles (which is actually dormant chickenpox), can pop up so easily after a measles infection.

It's also a good reason to get your kids their chickenpox vaccine, and for older adults to get their shingles vaccine.

[Farmer-Rick]

35. Oh yeah, you are right it's chickenpox.

[bitterross]

26. Actually - WOW! That's a lot of stupid parents.

I'm going with - what a bunch of idiots.

[dewsgirl]

2. In Florida, you cannot attend school without your immunization

record. I wonder why this isn't the case in other states?

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. In Florida, you can attend school without immunication. Courtesy of Form DH 681.

In lieu of a vaccination record, parents can provide Form DH 681, Religious Exemption From Immunization. It's issued by the county Health Department. Depending upon the county, they can be somewhat strict or as lenient as you can possibly imagine.

[dewsgirl]

18. In Indian River County, you need to have either a blue or yellow card.

I assumed this was everywhere? Maybe I am wrong? They certainly make it sound like you don't have a choice.(not that I would)

[mcar]

3. Good

[onetexan]

5. Safety of the public must trump personal beliefs/views

We cannot have mass outbreaks because of the poor decisions of the few.

[Igel]

19. We can't have mass outbreaks because of the poor decisions of the few.

The poor decisions--not to get vaccinated--let the unvaccinated retrieve and return the virus from other parts of the world. But if you're vaccinated and it's up to date (otherwise you're a bad, bad person and an anti-vaxxer /snark ) then you mostly have nothing to fear. Those at risk are the immuno-compromised. There are far more undocumented immigrants lacking vaccinations than there are people in the US with compromised immune systems.

If you're concerned that so many people have lost their immunity, then we have a whole 'nother discussion about what "herd immunity" means because the reason the law passed boils down to "everybody who's been immunized must still be considered immunized, unless a doctor says otherwise on a case-by-case basis."

The religious exemption is still in place in WA state. That puts us back to the '60s and '70s, with the proviso that there are far more people with a religious affiliation that could get them exempted on religious grounds.

Instead one of several things will happen (actually, I think they all will happen):

Track A:
1. People will shop to find a doctor that'll write a medical excuse.
2. Washington State will decide that really it is the state's business to get involved in the doctor-patient relationship because all those exemptions from (1) will be questionable.
3. People will shop to find a handy dime-store minister who'll dole out religious exemptions for a mere $1.99 + shipping/handling of $19.99 for the certificate.
4. Religious exemptions will come under fire, both from the state which sees its will thwarted as well as by people who can't stand somebody getting away with something that they disapprove of or can't get away with.

Track B:
1. People will sue, saying that their students have a right to a FAPE. That's a Constitutional right, and the vaccinations block that right. The state will argue that public safety is more of a constitutional right than education, which'll have an interesting effect when it comes to court rulings that say you can't kick a bully or aggressive person out of school without a court order for that person--public safety isn't *that* important.
2. People will sue, saying that granting any privilege or tolerance for religious folks constitutes the establishment of a government-sponsored religion.
3. People will sue, saying that requiring a religious affiliation to demonstrate religious belief is so 20th-century and the 1st amendment doesn't specify that--so under religious freedom considerations, they must, also, be allowed exemptions.

[onetexan]

22. Well expounded

[Farmer-Rick]

31. If it is unvaccinated undocumented immigrants

Last edited Tue Dec 31, 2019, 08:06 PM - Edit history (1)

How do you explain the high rate of unvaccinated in Vermont and Georgia?

https://www.verywellfamily.com/school-vaccination-and-exemption-rates-2633734

Also get your shingles vaccine if you got chickenpox as a child. The leading cause of suicide due to pain is caused by shingles.

[Voltaire2]

6. Good. Anti-vac bullshit is killing people.

[TheFourthMind]

7. The unvaccinated infect the unvaccinated? "So it will just work itself out naturally?" n/t

[AtheistCrusader]

9. That's not how it works.

A vaccine is just a 'wanted' poster. It lets your immune system recognize the invader. The immune system still has to do the heavy lifting and actually kill the invader. People, even vaccinated, can be immunocompromised at any time. Unrelated illness, immunodeficiency of which there are many kinds, even strenuous physical effort can leave your immune system temporarily compromised.

Vaccines only work as a public health measure by making the population resilient enough to slow the infection rate, and halt the propagation of the illness.

If too many kids are unvaccinated, the illness can spread quickly, and high exposure rates will continue to get even vaccinated kids sick. No vaccine is 100% protection for the individual. We have to pull together as a 'herd' to win, and that means, for many illnesses, depending on the virulence of the illness, a 85-95% vaccination rate.

[grantcart]

12. Excellent explanation

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. +1. Thanks on this important matter. . . . nt

[Politicub]

25. +1 - it bears repeating...

The immune system still has to do the heavy lifting and actually kill the invader.”

I had not thought of immunization in this way until I read your post. When there is an outbreak, both vaccinated and unvaccinated people will get infected. While the vaccinated person is better equipped to fight off the virus, their body may not be able to kill the virus because they are immunocompromised.

It is so important, as a society, for everyone to get vaccinated.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. I didn't discover all the ways physical exertion can cause the immune system to be depressed

until I started running long distances/marathons. Apparently its a common issue. Can hit the healthiest of people.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Good.

[abqtommy]

11. Let's start putting parents that don't vaccinate their kids in jail. See how long this anit-vax

bullshit lasts then.

[keithbvadu2]

14. Let them have their own charter school. They take all the risk.

Let them have their own charter school.

They take all the risk.

[napi21]

28. That's exactly what I was thinking. Mandate all unvaccinated kids atten one school.

Of course you know those parents would scream discrimination, but I think if they're told all you have to do is get your kid vaccinated, or no regular public school for your kids, it MIGHT convince most of them to relent. BTW, no bus service to those "special schools" so they'd have to get their kids to school on their own.

[efhmc]

15. My children could not attend public school without proof of vaccinations.

The local library provided free vaccination for those who wanted/needed them. This was an upper middle class area. The lines for the free shots were very long.

[cstanleytech]

16. Personally the only ones that should be excused are those that are due to a verifiable allergy to

taking them but all others should be required if they wish to attend public schools.

[obamanut2012]

17. Good -- this amount of unvaxxed kids means herd immunity is screwed

People make me sick.

[AtheistCrusader]

20. No. The immunization rate is 96%.

But if it drops a couple percentage points MORE, then some very virulent things have a shot at propagating/outbreak.

I'll look again, but the article is deceptive, because it doesn't tell you the rate. ~55k kids in the district. 2300 SOUNDS bad, but that's actually better than most of the nation. Dramatically better than most, actually.

(Edit: Correctly my claim about the article. The article DOES state the total number of kids, but doesn't point out the percentage, so there's no indication that this actually meets herd immunity thresholds already..)

We can do better, but that's what the school district is pushing for, and is pretty awesome.

[BigmanPigman]

23. "People make me sick"...

that statement is literal, not figurative, with this vaccination issue.

[EllieBC]

21. Good!

They can homeschool if they don’t want to vaccinate. They don’t need to be putting kids in schools at risk because they did 10 minutes of research on FB.

[Hestia]

24. Measles vaccines protect against more than just measles. Here's how.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/03/measles-vaccine-protect-disease-immune-amnesia/

Without vaccination, the highly contagious virus can allow other diseases to flourish in unsuspecting populations for more than two years after an infection.

Measles not only weakens your immune system in the short term, bouts with the virus seem to wipe your immune system's memory, causing the body to forget how to fight off things that you may have already conquered. For some people, this so-called immune amnesia may linger for months to years after an infection.

Now, a pair of studies published in Science and Science Immunology digs into the specific mechanism behind this detrimental side effect, comparing blood samples from unvaccinated children in the Netherlands before and after measles exposure.

more at link
===

Hmm, this must be why as children way back when we caught everything, especially after you had measles. Very interesting article.

[napi21]

29. YEAP When I went to 1st grade I got all of those "childhood " diseases. They just circled the

classroom one at a time. When you got back to school after having the measles, you'd be off again with mumps or chickenpox, & the rounds would start again.

[Farmer-Rick]

36. I also heard that about the flu vaccination

That it not only protects against the flu you are vaccinated for it reduces the symptoms of other viruses too.

I got my flu shot and avoided a bad head cold going around. It may have been luck but I usually get every head cold going around.

[RandySF]

27. Good