Measles can kill, and the message is far from loud and clear

By the time you read this, the province will probably have issued another measles update. If not today, maybe tomorrow. That’s how fast the disease is now spreading.

There have been several notices each week identifying new cases of the contagious, viral respiratory illness — 65 in total in recent months.

The notices are clinical and cautious — locations, dates, advice to monitor symptoms — and they matter. They are necessary. They are also plainly not enough.

Measles is back in Canada in a way many of us thought we had consigned to history. Last year, this country lost its measles-free status, a sobering milestone that should have set off political and public-health alarm bells.

Instead, we’ve settled into a routine of incremental updates and passive reminders, as though a highly contagious disease can be managed with quiet bulletins posted online.

It can’t.

Measles is not a minor childhood inconvenience. It spreads through the air, lingers for hours after an infected person leaves a room, and can, in worst case scenarios, hospitalize or kill the very young, the immunocompromised and those who cannot be vaccinated.

One infected person can spread it to multiple people in an unprotected population. That is not a statistic that calls for subtlety.

And yet, subtlety is exactly what we’re getting.

Public health officials dutifully issue exposure notices. They remind parents to check immunization records. All of that is part of the job.

But when measles cases are rising week after week, the response needs to be more than administrative. It needs to be loud, persistent, unavoidable — and yes, aggressive.

The province should be blanketing the public with clear, unapologetic messaging about vaccination.

Radio. Television. Newspapers. Billboards. Social media. Transit ads. School newsletters. Grocery store posters. The works. Otherwise, there is a danger that these regular updates get normalized and people start ignoring them (if some haven’t already).

This isn’t about shaming hesitant parents or mocking people who have fallen down online rabbit holes. It’s about counteracting a well-organized, well-funded anti-vaccine movement that has spent years flooding the information space with fear, half-truths and outright disinformation.

That movement did not whisper its way into influence. It shouted, posted, shared and repeated its claims until they felt familiar.

The anti-vax policies of the Trump administration south of the border are undoubtedly contributing to this cycle of disinformation.

In response, public health in Manitoba, and in the rest of Canada, has responded with fact sheets. Facts matter, but repetition matters, too. So does tone. So does urgency.

When the province quietly posts regular measles updates, the message many people receive — unintentionally — is that this is under control, routine, manageable. The reality is that outbreaks thrive in silence and complacency.

We should be hearing, over and over again, that the measles vaccine is safe, effective and has been used for decades. We should be reminded that high vaccination rates protect not only our own children but newborns, cancer patients and others who rely on community immunity.

Indeed, it was through vaccinations — and only vaccinations — that Canada achieved measles-free status. Until we lost it.

We should be told plainly that the current outbreak is not a mystery of nature but largely the predictable consequence of falling immunization rates.

The rise in measles cases did not happen in a vacuum. It followed years of declining childhood vaccination coverage, accelerated by pandemic disruption and, more recently, turbocharged by online misinformation.

Pretending otherwise does not make the problem easier to solve. It makes it harder.

Neutrality is a luxury we can’t afford when preventable diseases are spreading. Clear, evidence-based advocacy for vaccination is not political. It is the core mandate of public health.

We already know how to do this. Governments have successfully run sustained campaigns around seatbelts, impaired driving and smoking. Those efforts didn’t rely on occasional updates and polite reminders. They relied on repetition, visibility and the willingness to say, plainly, that certain behaviours put lives at risk.

Vaccination deserves the same treatment.

Imagine a provincewide campaign that doesn’t just inform but insists: check your child’s immunization record today, talk to your doctor, don’t wait for an exposure notice to tell you what you should already know.

Imagine hearing that message during the morning commute, seeing it on the evening news, passing it on a billboard on the way home and having it pop up on your social-media feed.

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Right now, the anti-vaccine movement enjoys a megaphone that public health has largely ceded. That is a choice — and it’s a costly one.

Measles didn’t return because we lacked the science to stop it. It returned because we stopped insisting on the solutions we already have.

Weekly updates will continue. They should. But unless the province matches those notices with a sustained, high-profile push for vaccination, we will keep reading them and wondering how a disease we once eliminated managed to find its voice again.

It’s time for the province, and all of us, to speak louder.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca

Tom Brodbeck
Columnist

Tom Brodbeck is an award-winning author and columnist with over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.

Tom provides commentary and analysis on political and related issues at the municipal, provincial and federal level. His columns are built on research and coverage of local events. The Free Press’s editing team reviews Tom’s columns before they are posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press’s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.