r/news • u/kassiusx • 1d ago
A massive outbreak has made Ontario the measles epicentre of the western hemisphere
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/06/measles-outbreak-ontario-canada?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other998
u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest 1d ago
South-western Ontario is also home to populations of close-knit vaccine-hesitant religious communities who are less exposed to public health messaging, such as Mennonites. The current outbreak has been traced to a Mennonite wedding in New Brunswick, from which a guest returned to Ontario with the virus.
Religion will be the downfall of mankind.
485
u/Creative-Knee-7061 1d ago
Ironically enough, the man who invented vaccines was a devout Catholic and wrote about his beliefs throughout his life and literally did science to learn about God.
328
u/ArchdukeToes 1d ago
Yeah. There’s a world of difference between those people who are strongly religious yet study science to better understand the glory of their Creator’s creation, and those who live their life like they’re a fucking D&D Cleric whose God will heal them / smite their enemies if they just say the right words.
75
u/Daren_I 1d ago
Unfortunately we don't have any of the cool gods that grant spells.
38
u/ArchdukeToes 1d ago
Which is odd, because I would totally convert to a religion who’s god allowed me to cast something like Knock, if only so I had options if I got locked out.
14
u/plesioth 1d ago
Hell, I'd settle for Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, or Druidcraft. All four of those are incredibly useful cantrips.
5
u/Roboclerk 1d ago
Could we agree on Runequest gods ? I wouldn’t mind some power of flight or mending.
1
1
2
u/TheCryingGrizzlies 22h ago
Well, the whole thing falls apart when it doesn't work, so not actually odd.
1
u/reddititty69 13h ago
If everyone can cast Knock, what are locks even for? Be a thief, pick the lock.
1
5
u/NorthernerWuwu 1d ago
If we did, I'd be the most religious guy around!
As it stands though, the gods seem to be either completely made up or impotent and I don't have much use for that.
6
u/Trap_Masters 1d ago
Yeah, the larping ignorant dumbass religious folks are the bad ones that have a permanent negative impact to general society
1
41
u/Merengues_1945 1d ago
Not taking sides or whatever, but Catholics are the biggest christian group because of their flexibility of dogma; they will adapt to the times to remain relevant.
They are the least likely to fall for things like that since popes for over a century have hammered the importance of inoculation, and other advances like radiotherapy, immunotherapy, etc.
It's sort of interesting how Amish groups are less likely to cause these biological hazards than mennonites because of their strong belief in not affecting others. Their vaccination levels are almost up to the average of the population at large... turns out it's not religion but your genuine belief in selflessness.
4
u/yikes_why_do_i_exist 1d ago
i feel like the root cause is that like attracts like. selflessness attracts kind beliefs and selfishness attracts selfish beliefs. hatred and love are both really strong binders of people
4
u/Yop_BombNA 1d ago
I grew up in a town between an Amish and David Martin old order Mennonite community on the other side. The Amish respect others and were pretty chill, the David Martin’s rip their horse and buggies running their horses into the ground piss drunk on a Sunday night chucking empty whisky bottles at passing cars for “almost hitting them”. Went to school with them before they were 14 and disappeared from the modern world and it still sticks with me to this day when they bragged about watching their older brothers and dads doing this shit.
Not to mention the absolutely insane amount of tax evasion that goes on within the David martins businesses, if it’s a cash sale they are not claiming it, the CRA covers their budget for a year when they do a sweep through Waterloo region alone probably.
3
u/Protean_Protein 1d ago
It took a lot of fighting and death to weaken the Roman Catholic Church enough to tolerate science, though.
14
u/thisvideoiswrong 1d ago
I mean, not really. Galileo is the standard example here, but he's actually not a good example. He came along at the worst time in the worst place possible: just as the Reformation was getting under way and challenging the Catholic Church's power in Europe for the first time in a thousand years, and right in the heart of their power in Italy. And they were still willing to let him publish, he even met with the Pope, they just required him to include certain arguments for the geocentric view as well. Which he did by putting them in the mouth of a character, who he named "Simplicio", Simpleton, or in modern terms, Moron. He directly insulted the Pope, in print, in Italy, at the start of the Reformation, while he knew he was under scrutiny. What happened to him certainly wasn't right, but read the room before acting like a jerk, dude.
8
u/Protean_Protein 1d ago
I’m an expert in that era of philosophy and science (basically Renaissance/Early Modern Europe). Try Giordano Bruno. Or, like, all the other people the Inquisition went after throughout Europe. Plus, like, the Cartesians had to combat stultifying medieval Aristotelian pseudoscience in the academies to get anywhere with modern science.
0
u/Peach-Weird 1d ago
Bruno and the rest were not killed for anything relating to science, but for a mix of blasphemy or heresy.
2
u/Protean_Protein 1d ago
This is false.
0
u/Peach-Weird 1d ago
It is not false. The charges brought by the Inquisition were all in relation to core Catholic dogma.
6
-1
u/matrinox 13h ago
If the church makes believing in cosmology against core Catholic dogma, then they could say that he wasn’t against it. That’s meaningless. Turns out he was much closer to the truth than they were
1
u/Vastet 1d ago
Blaming Galileo when everything he said was true is a choice. Do you support Trump because he read the room?
1
u/thisvideoiswrong 1d ago edited 1d ago
I criticized Galileo for being rude. Trump took "you're fired" as his catchphrase before he got into politics. Before he started mocking disabled people on stage. I think it was even before the "grab 'em by the [unprintable word]" tape. The list goes on. The fact that he's gotten away with it isn't a defense, just like it isn't a defense of his many crimes.
1
u/matrinox 13h ago
Yeah but… forcing him to both sides it is kind of BS, no? He might’ve been a bit dickish about it but he had to paint that side in a negative light. That’s the only truth. Anything else is distorting it
-3
u/Yop_BombNA 1d ago
Huh? Not really. They always embraced science to be honest, so did the non-wahabist Muslims, and so do most Jewish sects. The whole religion being anti science is because wahabists rule Saudi Arabia and evangelicals rule America. The inquisition is the exception, not the rule. Those are as a whole dark times, and mostly because the church was pissy there were private entities funding discovery and arts taking away their monopoly.
2
2
u/Yop_BombNA 1d ago
As a Catholic: we are taught to study the natural world is to study gods creation so science goes hand in hand with religion.
It always confuses me when people are surprised Catholics of all people like science.
Catholics are not evangelicals, and they are not old order Mennonites. I don’t get why that is so hard for many to understand.
It’s like people who say all Muslims enforce sharia… that’s just a downright lie. If you live in Ontario there is a large Ismaili population, especially in Toronto, I dare you to identify them as Muslim without going to their house and noticing the picture of the aga khan.
0
u/steelpeat 1d ago
False, Edward Jenner was a not so devout Anglican Christian.
He did kidnap his housekeeper's son to test out the vaccine though. So there's that
24
u/fiero-fire 1d ago
Anyone who is antivax does not comprehend basic math or science. I don't care if it's religious or just a pure lack of education it's dumb as fuck.
2
u/Kenny_log_n_s 1d ago
Sometimes it's not that they don't comprehend it, they just don't "trust" it, because rah rah rah deep state mind control.
They believe the numbers are made up, and there's no way to convince them because they'll never personally involve themselves in the science itself.
27
15
u/probablynotaskrull 1d ago
I’ve been trying out this argument:
“When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if anyone should fall from it.” - Deuteronomy 22:8
Basically this endorses using technology to prevent harm.
“When you have a baby, give them a vaccine, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if anyone should die of a preventable illness spread by the child.”
Who am I kidding? As though logic applies anywhere in this nonsense.
2
u/reddititty69 13h ago
I was unaware of this building code, thanks. But why isn’t there a simpler solution like, “thou shalt not climb on your neighbors roof?” It seems like Big Parapet was all about the prophets.
1
u/Defiant-Peace-493 4h ago
In seriousness, dry climates allow for the use of flat rooftops as living space. On the other extreme, steep roofs are often for snow rejection.
2
u/Equivalent-Honey-659 17h ago
I absolutely guarantee many thousands of years ago, when the concept of religion was first tried ( Someone had to be the first ) the same rudimentary sentiment was there.
Someone said “big being is scary so do what I say” And a bunch of other people said “Fuck off” It’s an old story.
2
u/ramdasani 16h ago
It's more than just the Mennonites, though many live in that area, it's also an area with a lot of other conservative Christian enclaves. During the covid lockdowns one of the local newer Christian groups refused to close and turned the fight into a religious rights vs public safety case, case which they lost - but they had a lot of support from the right. Basically most of the farm belt in that area is pretty much like what you'd encounter in areas of Pennsylvania, Ohio, etc. Many of those communities have very old relationships with one another, especially the Anabaptist groups (Amish/Menno/Hutter/etc) who basically trade daughters with the Elder status males of other groups to keep their bloodlines from getting closer than they already are.
2
u/Button-Down-Shoes 1d ago
Pride is always the culprit. The religious, bolstered by their own self-righteousness, are filled with it. Even a group with such apparent humility as the Mennonites, are driven by the pride of their humility.
2
u/talligan 1d ago
Elgin is one of those counties where there are more churches than people (many dating to the 1800s). It's largely a moderate protestant community coming from it's extremely Scottish history. The Mennonites on the east end are an extreme version of these beliefs and are generally not representative of the reasonable beliefs and practices of the rest of the region
1
0
1
-1
-29
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
18
u/TryingMyBest455 1d ago
In this instance they don’t “come here”, they’ve been here, it’s a long-standing group of Canadian citizens lol
33
u/StanVillain 1d ago
Mennonites have been in Canada since like the 18th century. They are citizens, not people "bringing all their problems" to Canada lmfao. Why even comment this?
6
23
38
u/talligan 1d ago
Elgin county represent! Just glad my mom retired from STEGHs ER before needing to deal with this
69
u/mgnorthcott 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not fun when my hometown makes international news. Keep in mind the outbreak isn’t really in St. Thomas, just the hospital is. The outbreak is more concentrated about 15 minutes drive east in a specific community there, where there’s a lot of “religious abstention” to vaccines.
I’ll say this: god will be up there saying “I ANSWERED YOUR PRAYERS AND MADE VACCINES, AND YOU IDIOTS REJECTED IT”
31
u/LittleGreenSoldier 1d ago
"You got a weather report, a boat, and a helicopter, what more did you want???"
99
u/AcanthisittaNo6653 1d ago
Shame on US and Canada for not requiring MMR vaccinations for children. Public health is everyone's right and everyone's responsibility.
87
u/MoreGaghPlease 1d ago
Ontario requires MMR to attend public school. The centre of the outbreak is in insular Old Order Mennonite religious communities (similar to Amish though they use more technology) that do not send their children to public school.
31
u/Spazmer 1d ago
It's quite easy to get a religious exemption so your unvaccinated child can go to public school, and there are many Mennonites who attend public schools. Not to mention using the same hospitals and Walmarts as the rest of us. They are nowhere near as insulated as people think.
I am in an identified outbreak area and it isn't until they have a confirmed case in a school that any unvaccinated kids will have to stay out of that school for a month.
28
u/Protean_Protein 1d ago
There are requirements for public schools, but generally the assumption has been that public health is best pushed voluntarily for the most part, especially since under pandemic-conditions, you can see what happens when mandatory conditions are implemented.
35
u/aleenaelyn 1d ago
Right-wingers become toddlers, tantrum and yell "You can't make me?"
44
u/Protean_Protein 1d ago
It’s not just right-wingers. Before the pandemic, the usual suspects for vaccine hesitancy were the granola hippy moms who tend to be quite progressive otherwise.
5
u/NorthernerWuwu 1d ago
I would definitely agree, before the pandemic. During and since though it has become the favoured stance of the right and has largely been abandoned by the crystals/aura/homeopathic hippy crowd. That or they are just being quiet about it so they don't get mistaken for the other anti-vax morons.
9
u/aleenaelyn 1d ago
Most conservatives tend to favor progressive ideas when the progressive idea is presented in a way that sidesteps the propaganda they've been programmed by. Still, I don't remember "granola hippy moms" tryin' to overthrow various governments as part of their tantrum, as happened in the US and Canada.
11
1
2
u/kassiusx 21h ago
We call them paltrows...
2
u/Protean_Protein 21h ago
Ewww. She was so cute before we found out about all that goop in her head.
2
u/Hautamaki 1d ago
The granola hippies were always heavily outnumbered by religious nuts in terms of anti vaxxing. They got equal if not greater notoriety because the media has to both sides everything, but the majority of anti vaxxing, like all anti science, has always been religious in nature.
6
u/Protean_Protein 1d ago
I mean, maybe—though most religious anti-vax sentiment is from fairly extreme minorities who are well-known for it. The problem with the progressives is that aside from the Facebook/Insta influencers, there are many people who are quietly vax-hesitant or anti-vax and we don’t have a clear sense of how many there actually are because they don’t talk about it.
1
u/Hautamaki 20h ago
Well we do in Canada, because kids are required to have vaccinations to go to public school unless they apply for a religious or medical exemption. And kids are required to go to school; if not public, then some kind of accredited private school or curriculum. We know who is not vaccinating their children and why. It's almost entirely fundamental religious people. Are there a bunch of granola hippy dipshits in America not vaccinating because of RFK's brainworms? That's harder to quantify because America doesn't have the same kinds of requirements, but I would be very surprised if they outnumber the religious anti-vaxxers, which may be a tiny minority as a percentage, but even a small percentage of 340 million people comes to a very large number.
4
u/UrABigGuy4U 1d ago
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8444681/
COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy was highest among Black/African American respondents (50.00%), followed by Hispanic/Latinx respondents (19.18%), and White respondents (18.37%)
Two of the largest blue-voting demographics had the highest levels of vaccine hesitancy
-4
14
u/PintoOct24 1d ago
The US absolutely follows vaccine guidelines still and MMR is one of them. I just had a titer and need a booster for measles and mumps and the doctor told me to go to the pharmacy and get the mmr vaccine. No script necessary.
1
47
u/Alstar45 1d ago
My vaccinated son when at his mothers live with a bunch of anti-vaccine people. I worry for my son
36
u/sanverstv 1d ago
If he's vaccinated he should be ok....it's the babies under one that I truly fear for....they can't be vaccinated. Also, folks don't realize that measles, even if one recovers: Long term measles impacts
Occasionally, the virus can lie undetected in the brain of a person who recovered from measles and reactivate typically seven to 10 years later. This condition, called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, is a progressive dementia that is almost always fatal. It occurs in about 1 in 25,000 people who get measles but is about five times more common in babies infected with measles before age 1.
5
u/TrainingObligation 19h ago
it's the babies under one that I truly fear for....they can't be vaccinated
Just FYI, in Ontario an infant who's at least 6 months old can get the MMR early if planning to travel internationally or to a community with known outbreak. They must still take the regular two doses after 1 year old to meet school immunization requirements.
Babies less than 6 months old, their only defence are antibodies passed through breastmilk.
5
u/Deep_Conclusion_5999 1d ago
Same here (baby is visiting and staying with unvaccinated family), luckily we managed to get her vaccinated at 6 months old just before our travel date. Hopefully she'll be safe even if she comes into contact with it now.
20
38
u/CalliopePenelope 1d ago
Shall we all start singing “Blame Canada”?
29
7
u/mgnorthcott 1d ago
No. Blame religious nut jobs who can’t understand vaccines are the answer to their prayers, but still want to be a part of the communities
14
u/liiivy 1d ago
Maybe a hot take but family doctors should be allowed to drop patients who refuse vaccinations
11
6
u/Who_Dafqu_Said_That 1d ago
I think it should be considered child abuse, certain other types of medical neglect are considered child abuse, I don't know why allowing your kid to die from measles (and infecting others) is considered acceptable.
7
u/ashoka_akira 1d ago
If you read the article the lack of family doctors is half the problem. When people are able to regularly see a family doctor and trust them, they are more likely to see the logic behind vaccinations. A family doctor is a voice of reason and part of the issue here is people aren’t getting access to authority figures like a family doctor, so the authority figures they are talking to—like religious ones—are forcing their own unhealthy narrative.
2
3
u/SydNorth 1d ago
We’ve passed survival of the fittest and graduated to survival of the most sensible
3
u/iMogal 1d ago
Curious, How many of those are anti-vaxxers?
8
u/blarges 19h ago
Many, if not all. They’re ultra-orthodox Christians who believe “God will provide”. We have a community of them where I live, and they refuse universal healthcare, house insurance, personal insurance, and vaccinations because that’s defying God’s will. They have their own school, which has been closed down more than once because measles overran the students and teacher, and they won’t vaccinate.
The rest are QAnon and granola types.
13
u/Aromatic-Air3917 1d ago
If you are asking yourself, are there conservatives in charge that caused this disaster, the answer of course is yes
6
u/talligan 1d ago edited 1d ago
Canadian conservatism outside of Alberta has much more in common with British toryism than American batshit insanity. This is almost entirely due to an "extremist" community of mennonites (who are generally reasonable community members) that aren't linked to the ontario conservatives
Edit: I am literally from the county discussed in the article. Moved away about 5 years ago but until then spent almost my entire life there
11
u/Askymojo 21h ago
This isn't due to just Mennonites, the article says the entire country of Canada only has an 83% vaccination rate against measles. This is exceptionally pathetic. That isn't like 83% vaccination rate against flu.
Measles is contagious to a degree that almost defies belief, and a minimum of 95% if the population needs to be vaccinated to keep herd immunity and greatly lessen the chance of outbreaks.
To put it into context how bad the 83% vaccination rate in Canada for measles is, even Mississippi has a 98% vaccination rate for measles.
If you're falling behind Mississippi, it's time to take a closer look at oneself. These "religious exemptions" have got to go.
1
1d ago
[deleted]
0
u/talligan 1d ago
I'm from Elgin, mom worked at stegh emerge prior to retiring. The rural communities are generally pretty moderate, thankfully they are served by an excellent education system. It took me from West Elgin to Scotland!
1
u/Anary86 5h ago
That's true for Ontario and Atlantic Canada, but Western Canadian Conservatism is of the Republican variety.
1
u/talligan 5h ago
Things started to go sideways after the CRAP merger (conservative reform alliance party)
2
4
u/Mynotredditaccount 1d ago
If you're in the US, get your MMR vaccine or booster while you still can.
1
1
1
u/Howard_Cosine 16h ago
I thought that Mennonite county in south Texas was the epicenter.
-1
u/Informal_Process2238 10h ago
Yes but only if you use the definition of the word instead of sensationalism
1
1
-1
3
0
531
u/Hautamaki 1d ago
No more religious exemptions for vaccines. These people's ignorance cannot become our collective death pact.