“Today, as we declare an end to the Upstate measles outbreak, the largest in the United States in more than 35 years, I wish to humbly and profoundly thank the South Carolinians whose hard work prevented this outbreak from becoming far larger and more serious than it could have become.”
“I am very thankful for their efforts and support during this challenging time. While 997 is a large number, without the front-line help from a diverse and dedicated group of people from all backgrounds and walks of life, I believe many more cases – and potentially more hospitalizations or even deaths – would have occurred. The outbreak was predominantly contained to one area of one county and never went statewide, thanks to timely investigations, identification of those exposed, and people’s willingness to stay home. In many ways, this was a textbook response to dealing with an outbreak,” said South Carolina Department of Public Health Interim Director Dr Edward Simmer in a statement Monday after a few weeks passed without a new reported case of the virus.
The statement goes on for a while and at no point does Simmer get anywhere near mentioning that maybe 997 infections from a disease whose vaccine was invented and reproduced at mass scale decades ago should not have happened in the first place and that aversion to said vax comes from the top in a state that again and again and again elects candidates from the party opposed to them.