By Paul Ricci
Much has been made of the clash between Gov. Josh Shapiro and HHS secretary Robert Kennedy Jr with Kennedy disputing the 2 measles deaths in the state. The state maintains a dashboard showing the measles outbreak numbers in the Pennsylvania. I will now look at what these numbers are saying.
The image above shows that there are 540 cases in the state with 91 hospitalized (16.9% of the total cases) and 2 fatalities. Twenty two percent of the cases (119/540) contracted it in the last 7 days with none of the cases fully vaccinated.
The next image above shows that there is an exponential growth curve for the disease in the state. There were more than 300 cases in the month of August which is more than half of the total. The 25-49 year age group has the most cases followed by the 18-24 age group. Unlike COVID, this disease primarily impacts the younger age groups.
The next image shows the concentration of counties in the state. Lancaster has by far the most cases at 242 (with 2 fatalities). Chester County is second with 52 cases followed by Mifflin with 49. In the Alleghenies, Jefferson has the most with 23 cases followed by Centre with 17 and Clearfield with 12.
Just as there was an exponential increase in the number of cases, there was a similar increase in the number of vaccinations. In the past I maintained a database showing the number of cases increasing for Cambria County during the pandemic. Will I have to maintain another one tracking measles outbreak numbers in Pennsylvania?