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00:00We know there's at least 250-plus infected children and adults.
00:07It's probably an underestimate.
00:09It could be considerably higher
00:12because some of the affected individuals
00:17haven't sought medical attention.
00:20Others are still in the process of being diagnosed.
00:23The numbers keep going up every Tuesday and Friday
00:26when the Texas Health Department reports it out.
00:29The reason it's happening is because we have
00:32a large unvaccinated population in West Texas.
00:36This part of Texas had the lowest COVID vaccination rates
00:44and, unfortunately, very high death rates during the pandemic.
00:51So the lowest COVID vaccination rates
00:54were in some of these same counties,
00:56and it's spilling over to childhood immunizations.
01:00And so what could be done is we've got to, one,
01:04create opportunities for especially parents
01:08of unvaccinated kids in this area
01:12to start going to vaccination clinics that are being set up
01:16but persuade them to go through with it.
01:18I mean, even if they're exposed to measles virus,
01:21if they're vaccinated within 72 hours of exposure,
01:25the vaccine will still have a protective effect.
01:29You know, I like the comparison
01:31to having a hurricane over warm water.
01:34As long as there's warm Caribbean water around,
01:37the hurricane will continue to accelerate.
01:39In this case, the warm water
01:41is the large unvaccinated population in West Texas.
01:45The vaccine's one of the safest, most effective vaccines we have.
01:49Single dose, more than 90% protective.
01:53Two doses is 97% protective.
01:56We typically will vaccinate children
01:59around 12 to 15 months of age
02:01and then give them a second dose around school entry,
02:054 to 6 years of age.
02:07And then if a higher percentage
02:11of children in the community are vaccinated,
02:14say over 90%, 95%,
02:16that in itself will create a herd immunity phenomenon
02:19that'll stop transmission.
02:22The numbers will continue to climb
02:24as long as there's large numbers of unvaccinated individuals.
02:28This virus is one of the most transmissible viruses we know about
02:32because it takes a low inoculum of virus to set up infection,
02:36and the virus can linger in the atmosphere
02:39even after a person has left the room.
02:42And so somebody with shedding measles virus
02:46can go in someplace, shed virus in the atmosphere,
02:50inside a room, let's say,
02:52and then that individual can leave,
02:54and an unvaccinated child or adult walks in there,
02:57they could become infected very easily.
03:00The three Cs, it's cough, what's called coriza,
03:04which is upper respiratory cold symptoms, runny nose,
03:07and conjunctivitis.
03:09And those three Cs are then followed
03:12by the virus getting entrance into the bloodstream
03:16and causing a characteristic rash that starts at the hairline
03:20and then spreads downward.
03:22And then, unfortunately,
03:24around 20% of kids require hospitalization if they're unvaccinated
03:28and a high percentage have measles pneumonia,
03:30what's called the giant cell pneumonia,
03:32and encephalitis, and also the virus gets into your immune cells
03:36and damages your memory.