Nationwide Measles Surge

[Walt]

Weren't millions (nobody knows how many, BTW) of unidentified and potentially unvaccinated people who may have carried previously eradicated diseases recently allowed to enter the US?

They were paroled, so the government knows exactly how many. They were identified, and their health was checked. That means they were vaccinated.

Measles is constantly reentering the USA through legal means, which is why we should have a strong vaccination program. There was a time when all of the Americas had strong vaccination programs, but Team Epstein put an end to that.

 

[Walt]

Can one decent Democrat <attempt to> justify why Shapiro chose to not present a unified message and help improve vaccination rates?

A unified message with trump administration would water down the response. Would a unified message be that MMR vaccines are dangerous? Yes, basically.

 

[Walt]

Josh Shapiro was just asked why he claimed a newborn infant who died of a spleen rupture died due to being unvaccinated for measles:"I don't think it serves the interest of public health for me to get into a back and forth about conspiracy theories showing up online."I'm pretty sure what actually doesn't serve public health is a politician lying to score political points because he wants to run for President.

This is where we are. We know that measles often causes spleen ruptures, but the Republican coroner claims that it is just a coincidence that the baby had both the measles and a spleen rupture. The Republican coroner claimed the spleen was not enlarged, but other doctors said that a spleen ruptures because it is enlarged, so that is nonsense. The Republican coroner explained that the spleen looked normal enlarged, not measles enlarged, which no one else thinks is a possible distinction.

Is it possible that one of the people who died in the WTC on 9/11 died of a heart attack he would have died from even if the building was not hit? Yes, but I do not see how it is helpful to debate that. Likewise, I do not see how it is helpful for Shapiro to debate every attempt by Team Epstein to say measles is really not that bad.

 

[Diogenes]

They were paroled, so the government knows exactly how many. They were identified, and their health was checked. That means they were vaccinated. Measles is constantly reentering the USA through legal means, which is why we should have a strong vaccination program. There was a time when all of the Americas had strong vaccination programs, but Team Epstein put an end to that.

I asked about people who came in without a reliable count and without a reliable vaccine record.


Y O U answered by citing a different population and then declared the question closed.


Millions entered, nobody knows how many, unidentified, potentially unvaccinated, possible disease import.


Walt:

1. Swap the set — “they were paroled,” so now it’s only the parole caseload, not encounters, got-aways, visa overstays, or people who never hit a processing site.
2. Inflate the paperwork — parole means a number exists in a file. That is not “the government knows exactly how many people crossed.”
3. Leap the medical claim — identified + “health was checked” becomes “that means they were vaccinated.” A screening is not an MMR series on a record.
4. Change the subject — measles comes in through legal travel, so talk about vaccination programs and “Team Epstein.”

 

[QP!]

A unified message with trump administration would water down the response. Would a unified message be that MMR vaccines are dangerous? Yes, basically.

We can say with near 100% certainty that if Shapiro or anyone lends any credibility to RFK Jr, he will utilize that in lies he tells on subsequent occasions misrepresented what was said and agreed to.

 

[Walt]

Millions entered, nobody knows how many, unidentified, potentially unvaccinated, possible disease import.

You are rewriting what happened. The border is incredibly secure these days. The immigrants that Team Epstein calls illegal are not fully crossing the border. They are taking a few steps across the border, and looking for a border guard to apply for asylum with. They then are paroled.

That means there is a count of them. There are certainly not millions crossing the border without being paroled.

As part of getting paroled, they have to prove vaccination. It is part of the normal medical checks.

 

[Diogenes]

You are rewriting what happened.

Am I?

The border is incredibly secure these days.

Is it? Why would that be, I wonder.

The immigrants that Team Epstein calls illegal are not fully crossing the border.

Is that so? Is this "Team" there, in the room with you, right now? What do they look like? Can you see them?

They are taking a few steps across the border, and looking for a border guard to apply for asylum with. They then are paroled.

Who told you that?

That means there is a count of them.

Does it?

There are certainly not millions crossing the border without being paroled.

Is that a fact?

As part of getting paroled, they have to prove vaccination. It is part of the normal medical checks.

Is that true? How do you know?

 

[Hawkeye10]

3000 so far this year, I have a hard time getting excited, but I would like to see a breakdown Americans/Not Americans.

 

[Diogenes]

Walt is doing the usual four-step: shrink the population, inflate the paperwork, leap to “that means vaccinated,” then change the subject to “Team Epstein.”


Here is what the actual numbers and rules show.


Measles itself (CDC / AAP Red Book as of Aug 20, 2026)

• 2,777 confirmed U.S. cases in 2026 (already past the full-year 2025 total of 2,289; highest since 1991).
• 16 of those 2,777 were legal international visitors. That is 0.6%.
• 94% of cases were unvaccinated or unknown status.
• 94% outbreak-associated, overwhelmingly in domestic low-coverage pockets (South Carolina ~670, Utah ~526, Pennsylvania is now the hot spot with hundreds of cases).
• Kindergarten MMR coverage dropped from 95.2% (2019–20) to 92.4% (2025–26); exemptions rose to 4.2%.

Immigration status of cases is not even published.


“They have to prove vaccination as part of getting paroled”

Not even close to uniformly true.

• Legal immigrants and many refugees get overseas panel-physician exams and required vaccines before they board.
• Humanitarian parole programs that do have conditions (Afghan, Uniting for Ukraine, some CHNV) require at least one measles-containing dose, polio, TB screening, and often an attestation after arrival or within 90 days. That is not the same as a completed MMR series on a verified record at the moment of parole.
• People who simply present at the southwest border and claim asylum are not given the same pre-departure medical exam as visa immigrants. A “health check” at processing is not an MMR series. Verbal reports of childhood shots from high-burden countries are not accepted as proof.

“There is a count of them. There are certainly not millions crossing without being paroled.”


Two different time periods are being mashed together.

• Peak years (roughly 2021–2024): CBP recorded ~10.4 million southwest encounters Oct 2018–May 2025 and granted ~2.4 million paroles. Nobody knows how many weren't even detected. Got-aways were estimated in the hundreds of thousands per year on top of that. Those people were not all “taking three steps and looking for a guard.”
• Current period: encounters collapsed after January 2025. Border Patrol parole releases at the southwest border hit zero for twelve consecutive months through April 2026; overall encounters are down ~90%+ from the peak. Walt is describing 2026 reality and pretending it has always been the case.

Pennsylvania deaths (the part of the thread Walt is also dancing around)


State health department called two deaths in Lancaster County “measles-associated.”


One was a newborn who died of a ruptured spleen. The county coroner and the pathologist said the rupture was traumatic and they did not consider measles a contributing cause. Democrat Governor Shapiro and the state health secretary are standing by the “measles-associated” language anyway.


Walt’s claim that every parolee “has to prove vaccination” as a routine medical check is a gross overstatement of the rules that actually apply to border asylum claims.


The current low-encounter numbers due to heighted border security do not erase the earlier multi-year inflow or the got-away estimates.

 

[Walt]

Why would that be, I wonder.

The efforts of Clinton, Bush, and Obama secured the border. Sadly, trump has been making the border less secure.

 

[Diogenes]

The efforts of Clinton, Bush, and Obama secured the border. Sadly, trump has been making the border less secure.

That is the opposite of the CBP tables.


Nationwide CBP enforcement encounters (OFO + Border Patrol)

Fiscal year	Total encounters	President
FY17	526,901	Trump 1
FY18	683,178	Trump 1
FY19	1,148,024	Trump 1
FY20	646,822	Trump 1
FY21	1,956,519	Biden
FY22	2,766,582	Biden
FY23	3,201,144	Biden (peak)
FY24	2,901,142	Biden
FY25	691,906	Trump 2
FY26 thru July	314,440	Trump 2

Border Patrol southwest encounters only (Pew / CBP):

FY17 ~304k (lowest in decades). FY21–24 ran 1.5–2.2 million. FY25 dropped to ~238k — lowest since 1970. FY26 is running even lower.

Border Patrol parole releases at the southwest border were zero for twelve straight months through April 2026.


Clinton and Bush routinely saw 1 million+ southwest apprehensions in multiple years. Obama’s mid-term numbers were lower after the recession, then climbed with the unaccompanied-minor waves.

The multi-year surge that produced the 2.4 million paroles and the large got-away estimates was 2021–2024. The collapse you now call “incredibly secure” started after January 2025.


You cannot have it both ways: credit “Clinton, Bush, and Obama” for security while the record highs happened on the later watch, then treat the 2025–26 drop as "Trump" making the border less secure.

 

[Hawkeye10]

The efforts of Clinton, Bush, and Obama secured the border. Sadly, trump has been making the border less secure.

I see no evidence for that, though Trumps claims that he would drive mass deportations was likely always a lie....and it certainly has not happened.

 

[Walt]

One was a newborn who died of a ruptured spleen. The county coroner and the pathologist said the rupture was traumatic and they did not consider measles a contributing cause. Democrat Governor Shapiro and the state health secretary are standing by the “measles-associated” language anyway.

We know that measles often causes a ruptured spleen. Team Epstein argues that maybe it is just a coincidence that the ruptured spleen happened in a baby with measles. How rare are ruptured spleens? It seems like a farfetched coincidence, but I suppose it is possible.

Is it helpful to argue each possible cause? Measles kills people, and it is important to stop it. There is a one percent chance that measles did not kill one of the two babies killed probably by measles... But is it helpful to be making that an important argument?

 

[Hawkeye10]

South Africa with a population of 65 million has more cases than we do...about 3,400.

 

[Diogenes]

We know that measles often causes a ruptured spleen. Team Epstein argues that maybe it is just a coincidence that the ruptured spleen happened in a baby with measles. How rare are ruptured spleens? It seems like a farfetched coincidence, but I suppose it is possible. Is it helpful to argue each possible cause? Measles kills people, and it is important to stop it. There is a one percent chance that measles did not kill one of the two babies killed probably by measles... But is it helpful to be making that an important argument?

Walt just invented a measles complication that textbooks do not list.


“We know that measles often causes a ruptured spleen.”

No.

Standard complication lists (CDC, AAP, UpToDate, recent NEJM-style reviews) are pneumonia, diarrhea, otitis, encephalitis, SSPE, and death.

Splenic rupture is not on those lists. Mild splenomegaly can occur with many viral illnesses, including measles.

Atraumatic splenic rupture is rare. The infection classically tied to it is EBV/mono (~0.1% of cases), not measles. Systematic reviews of atraumatic rupture list infectious and neoplastic causes; measles is not a featured etiology.


Neonatal ruptured spleen is itself uncommon. Reported causes are birth trauma, difficult delivery, coagulopathy, prematurity — not “measles often does this.” A newborn dying minutes after delivery from a lacerated spleen is a trauma/forensic question first.


What the people who actually examined the body said

Lancaster County Coroner Diamantoni and the forensic pathologist (Dr. Wayne Ross) attributed death to traumatic laceration of the spleen and stated they did not consider measles a contributing cause.

State health and Democrat Governor Shapiro still use “measles-associated" anyway — “we know it often causes rupture” plus “1% chance measles didn’t kill one of the two babies” — is not what the autopsy said and is not what the literature says.


“Two babies killed probably by measles”

Public reporting: two measles-associated deaths in Lancaster County, both unvaccinated. One is the newborn. Details on the second case have been thinner. Treating both as settled pediatric measles deaths while the coroner is on the record against measles as the cause of the first one is the rhetorical move, not the medical record. BTW, MMR is not given to newborns, and it is not FDA-approved under 12 months.


The useful public-health point does not require inflating a rare (or disputed) mechanism. That stands without “Doctor Walt” rewriting the spleen literature or the autopsy.

 

[Walt]

We can say with near 100% certainty that if Shapiro or anyone lends any credibility to RFK Jr, he will utilize that in lies he tells on subsequent occasions misrepresented what was said and agreed to.

They keep saying they are not anti-vaccine, but merely "vaccine skeptics." To keep up herd immunity, we need almost everyone on board, and they are causing a significant number not to be on board. This is a disaster in the making. Tens of thousands of children will die because of Kennedy. And his supporters are demanding we all support him in this disaster.

 

[Walt]

South Africa with a population of 65 million has more cases than we do...about 3,400.

Vaccination rates are dropping fast, so measles will shoot up suddenly. Right now we are barely better than South Africa, but soon we will be far worse.

It is a disgrace.

 

[Hawkeye10]

Vaccination rates are dropping fast, so measles will shoot up suddenly. Right now we are barely better than South Africa, but soon we will be far worse.

It is a disgrace.

3400/65 is way worse than 3000/343

You almost certainly knew that when you picked the word barely.

 

[Diogenes]

Tens of thousands of children will die because of Kennedy.

Hopefully they'll mostly be illegals.

 

[Walt]

3400/65 is way worse than 3000/343

They have had centuries to get that bad, and we have only been on the current course for a few years. The replacement rate for human beings is very slow.

And we are talking about comparing the USA to South Africa.

Hopefully they'll mostly be illegals.

Immigrants have a higher vaccination rate than American born. It has so far hit red areas of the country hardest, and will almost certainly continue to hit red areas of the country hardest.