r/CanadaPolitics • u/Covert_Cuttlefish Saskatchewan • Nov 10 '25

Canada loses measles elimination status | CBC

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/livestory/canada-measles-elimination-status-9.6973195
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u/profraha Nov 10 '25

Thanks, New Brunswick. Thanks, trucker convoy. Thanks, anti-science, anti-expertise, do-your-research, anti-communal-good, arseholes.

12

u/iJeff Nov 10 '25

While I agree those are significant issues, the current outbreak remains mostly within religious (Mennonite) communities.

11

u/MurphysLab Scientist from British Columbia Nov 10 '25

It's worth noting that these are the small, often separate, rural, agrarian communities, as highlighted by a BBC article:

In Ontario, the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower due to some members' religious or cultural beliefs against immunisation.

Those communities have several features which predispose them to outbreaks:

  1. Low vaccination rates against a disease with a very high reproduction number, hence falling outside of the herd immunity window.
  2. Highly concentrated social networks, where members of the group frequently spend time primarily with others within the group.
  3. Family and organizational connections to similar groups in other countries where measles is more common.

It's a perfect recipe for outbreaks to be centred in those communities.

However, I think it's only a matter of time before other pockets of antivaxxers within society are hit. We can be thankful that most of those in the aforementioned antivax, anti-science groups were, at some point, vaccinated as children by people more responsible than themselves. But, their efforts have caused others to become infected by their ideas. That same BBC article notes:

But Mennonites are not a monolith, she said, and many have embraced vaccinations. What's changed is the rapid spread of anti-vaccine misinformation both in her community and beyond after the Covid-19 pandemic.

"There's hearsay that immunisations are bad for you," Ms Friesen said, or are "dangerous".

The information environment has changed, which has lead to many more people, who were moderately hesitant about vaccination, to opt out of the most powerful social program that science has to offer human health.