Health
How Much Vaccination Stops a Measles Outbreak?
To stop the spread of an infectious disease like measles, you don’t have to vaccinate everyone. But you do have to vaccinate many.
Just how many? To let you discover for yourself, we simulated an outbreak of a hypothetical disease, about as contagious as the flu. (A lot less contagious than measles.)
We’d like you to contain it. But first, some basics:
Here’s a sick person in a population with no protection against the disease.
That person infects some neighbors.
Who, in turn, do the same.
Soon, almost everyone has been infected.
In a world where no one has immunity, infectious diseases spread exponentially. That’s what happened early in the Covid pandemic.
But for most infectious diseases, many people will already have some level of immunity — whether through a previous infection or through vaccination — and this can slow the spread.
Now it’s your turn to try.
Level 1: Less Contagious
How low can you set the vaccination rate to contain the outbreak?
This simulation uses randomness, so the results will turn out somewhat differently every time you play it. But there are patterns that you can discover: When the vaccination level is below around 40 percent, outbreaks are very likely. Above that level, they’re quickly extinguished.
Chance of an outbreak growing out of control for a less contagious disease
That sharp gradient from red to white shows us this “herd immunity” threshold, where vaccination can halt an outbreak and protect the unvaccinated. (Including those who can’t be vaccinated, such as infants and people with weakened immune systems.)
The difference is stark. A little below that threshold, outbreaks easily grow out of control. Above it, they are quickly squelched. This is why it’s so important to keep vaccination levels above the herd immunity threshold.
Next, let’s see what happens with a disease that’s more contagious.
Level 2: More Contagious
How low can you set the vaccination rate to contain the outbreak?
Because this disease is more contagious, it can more easily slip through the gaps of unvaccinated people.
That’s why the vaccination level needed for herd immunity rose from around 40 percent to around 60 percent in this example: It takes greater levels of vaccination to contain a more contagious infectious disease.
Chance of an outbreak growing out of control for a less contagious disease …
… and for a more contagious disease
So far, all our simulations have assumed that vaccination is evenly distributed. In reality, that isn’t the case.
Our final simulation tries to capture two neighboring communities. Think of them like two school districts in the same county. In one district, 75 percent of students are vaccinated. In the other, just 50 percent are.
That means the average vaccination rate for the county overall is 63 percent — right around the herd immunity threshold for our simulated disease. But see what happens.
Unvaccinated pockets
50% Vaccinated
75% Vaccinated
For the most part, the 75 percent district is protected, while the 50 percent district is overrun, even though they sit right next to each other. Herd immunity operates at a local level, and the average vaccination rate for a broad region can mask smaller communities at risk.
On a few tries, you might have gotten lucky and seen the outbreak fizzle out. This, too, mimics reality. But luck is not an effective public health strategy.
The simulated world you saw above mirrors a real-world problem: There are increasingly many parts of the U.S. where skepticism of vaccines has gained momentum and childhood vaccination rates have fallen.
And measles is far more contagious than the disease we simulated — because of space constraints, we could not even simulate it in this form. It’s so contagious that a vaccination rate of 50 percent or even 75 percent won’t contain an outbreak.
How contagious is measles?
Epidemiologists estimate the contagiousness of an infectious disease with a “basic reproductive number,” or R0 — how many people a sick person infects, in a community with no protection.
A disease can grow out of control if an infected person infects more than one other person, on average. A person with the flu can infect one to two others — an R0 between 1 and 2.
But a person with measles can infect 10 times as many:
Disease
Contagiousness (Est. R0)
Measles
Whooping cough
Covid (Omicron)
Chickenpox
Polio
Covid (Delta)
Flu (1918)
Seasonal flu
For measles, a 1982 study put its R0 between 12 and 18. A more recent review of studies found a very wide spread, with a median of around 15 in the Americas.
That means measles is one of the most contagious diseases known. And there’s a direct relationship between contagiousness and the level of protection needed for herd immunity.
Population protection needed for herd immunity
Reaching herd immunity means each infected person can infect only one other person or fewer, on average. That means, at the high end of the measles range, you’d need to prevent 17 of 18 infections, or over 94 percent. That’s why health officials set a goal of vaccinating 95 percent of people against measles.
(The measles vaccine, unlike vaccines for some other infectious diseases, is very effective and its protection lasts decades; measles also is extremely unlikely to develop mutations that allow it to evade the vaccine.)
The average vaccination rate for kindergartners in the U.S. has fallen below that threshold since the pandemic. Most kindergarteners now live in states where the vaccination rates are below herd immunity.
Number of states with kindergarten measles vaccination rates below 95 percent
Many kindergartners live in counties and go to schools where the rates have fallen even further, below 80 percent or even below half — making it possible for measles to spread like wildfire.
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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Nearsightedness (myopia) is skyrocketing globally, with nearly half of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
Heavy use of smartphones and other devices is associated with an 80% higher risk of myopia when combined with excessive computer use, but a new study suggests that dim indoor lighting could also be a factor.
For years, scientists have been puzzled by the different ways myopia is triggered. In lab settings, it can be induced by blurring vision or using different lenses. Conversely, it can be slowed by something as simple as spending time outdoors, research suggests.
Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball grows too long from front to back, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). This physical elongation causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it, making distant objects appear blurry.
The study suggests that myopia isn’t caused by the digital devices themselves, but by the low-light environments where they are typically used. (iStock)
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry identified a potential specific trigger for this growth. When someone looks at a phone or a book up close, the pupil naturally constricts.
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“In bright outdoor light, the pupil constricts to protect the eye while still allowing ample light to reach the retina,” Urusha Maharjan, a SUNY Optometry doctoral student who conducted the study, said in a press release.
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“When people focus on close objects indoors, such as phones, tablets or books, the pupil can also constrict — not because of brightness, but to sharpen the image,” she went on. “In dim lighting, this combination may significantly reduce retinal illumination.”
High-intensity natural light prevents myopia because it provides enough retinal stimulation to override the “stop growing” signal, even when pupils are constricted. (iStock)
The hypothesis suggests that when the retina is deprived of light during extended close-up work, it sends a signal for the eye to grow.
In a dim environment, the narrowed pupil allows so little light through that the retinal activity isn’t strong enough to signal the eye to stop growing, the researchers found.
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In contrast, being outdoors provides light levels much brighter than indoors. This ensures that even when the pupil narrows to focus on a nearby object, the retina still receives a strong signal, maintaining healthy eye development.
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The team noted some limitations of the study, including the small subject group and the inability to directly measure internal lens changes, as the bright backgrounds used to mimic the outdoors made pupils too small for standard equipment.
Researchers believe that increasing indoor brightness during close-up work could be a simple, testable way to slow the global nearsightedness epidemic. (iStock)
“This is not a final answer,” Jose-Manuel Alonso, MD, PhD, SUNY distinguished professor and senior author of the study, said in the release.
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“But the study offers a testable hypothesis that reframes how visual habits, lighting and eye focusing interact.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.
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