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Florida sees 81% increase in whooping cough infections amid vaccine rollback
(www.tallahassee.com)
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Icon credit C. Brück on Wikimedia Commons.
I'm a bit torn on this reporting...
On the one hand I'm totally with them on using this as a cautionary tale about vaccine hesitancy and how the administration policies dangerously exacerbate that phenomenon, and a rough indicator of what the consequences may look like.
On the other hand, the headline makes it sound like the Florida rollback has caused this, but that isn't strictly true because:
The headline uses the word "amid," which is not specifically causative. But announcements have already been made, and the governor has insisted on moving ahead to eliminate vaccination requirements. People don't need a hard line to follow through on their personal choices to endanger others. They have essentially been given the green light, and they can excuse it in the meantime with "religious beliefs."
I'm always for the integrity of journalism because the lack thereof is part of the reason we're where we are today. A more accurate but eaqually as cautionary of a headline would be "Whooping cough cases on the rise in Florida as vaccine skepticism is legally supported by the states lawmakers" or something like that