Tepid Response

Get used to it, folks. Commentary is talking about the state of Texas’s lack of a major response to the measles outbreak. A tepid response at best. See this from the Chron today:

The news on Wednesday that a child died from measles at a Lubbock hospital is something that infectious disease experts like Dr. Peter Hotez have feared since an outbreak of the virus began spreading in northwest Texas.

The outbreak that started last month in the South Plains region has now infected 124 individuals, most of them school-aged children who have not received the vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella. Measles is highly contagious and can cause severe illness, so experts like Hotez feared the outbreak could turn deadly.

“Once you get this big an epidemic, and you get numbers up in hundreds or more, it’s almost inevitable you’ll see a childhood death, and maybe more,” said Hotez, the co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. “…It’s really sad.”

The Texas child’s death is the first measles death in the U.S. since 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As one of the nation’s leading infectious disease experts, Hotez has been raising alarms in interviews with news outlets and on social media. He and other experts have long believed an outbreak was inevitable because a rising number of Texas parents and guardians are opting to forgo routine childhood vaccinations for measles and other infectious diseases.

Here is the entire read: Dr. Peter Hotez warns of Texas measles outbreak after child’s death.

This looks like it is going to be the new normal.  There won’t be any state outreach to get the vaccination rate up. It will be up to local governments and local health care providers to get the rates up. That’s too bad.

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Gene Hackman is no longer with us. He was a great actor. I first noticed him in “Bonnie and Clyde” as Buck Barrow. His death scene in a field in that classic flick is one of the most memorable in cinematic history – in my book. He was in many notable flicks like “The French Connection,” “The Poseidon Adventure,” “The Conversation,” “Superman,” “The Firm,” “Unforgiven,” “Crimson Tide,” and “Mississippi Burning,” to name a few.

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The Rodeo’s 2025 World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest gets underway today. KPRC Channel News reporter Re’Chelle Turner in the featured photo was at NRG this morning to partake in the great grub. Channel 2 was also at the site of a trail ride this morning. The anchors asked the trail ride boss what was for breakfast thinking they were going to hear something along the lines of bacon and eggs. Nope. Shipley Do-Nuts. Too funny.
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Former Colt .45s, now Astros, Carl Warwick is 88 today. Warwick played for us in 1962 and 1963. He was an outfielder. He wasn’t an original Colt .45, because he got here in a trade in May of 1962, a few weeks after the season started in our inaugural year. Warwick wore the number 20. He only had a six-year career in MLB and won a World Series ring as a Cardinal in 1964. Happy Birthday, Carl Warwick!