Why do so many Capitol Hill-area kindergarten immunization rates still fall below herd immunity? Here’s what one school said

For the second straight day, there were no reported new cases of measles in Washington State.

That’s a weird sentence to start the news in 2019. But it’s true. There’s an outbreak of measles in modern day Washington. How did we get here… again?

Wednesday, the Seattle Times again rolled out the county’s illuminating dataset showing kindergarten immunization coverage rates for the 2017-2018 school year. Every couple of years when an outbreak flares again and people start talking about herd immunity — the point where enough people are immunized to protect those most vulnerable to infection — the same glaring red dot in the center of Capitol Hill draws attention and questions. Continue reading