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When we talk about the anti-vaccine movement, we often discuss the clinical impact—the deadly danger that vaccine-preventable diseases pose to the unvaccinated or the immunocompromised. But the vaccine hesitancy also has a large shared financial cost wired.trib.al/5HZ3psI 1/
Let’s take a look at the ongoing measles outbreak in Washington State, centered in Clark County. In January, when it had racked up 26 cases, the Washington state governor declared a public health emergency. Since then, the case count has jumped to 74. wired.trib.al/5HZ3psI 2/
To figure out who might have been put at risk, the state health department has interviewed 4,652 people, borrowed public health workers from other states, sent extra people out into the field, and performed hundreds of lab tests. So far, it has spent $1.6 million. 3/
In coverage of the dangers of vaccine hesitancy, cost doesn’t get discussed much. But it’s not unusual for a preventable disease outbreak to rack up a bill as high as Washington’s—or even higher. wired.trib.al/5HZ3psI 4/
In 2017, a five-month outbreak of measles in Minnesota infected 79 people and cost the state $2.3 million. And that’s just scraping the tip of the iceberg. wired.trib.al/5HZ3psI 5/ 
The funding to support this work isn’t being conjured out of thin air. It’s coming from the budgets of public agencies, which have already been facing years of cuts and have no secret stashes of discretionary money to dip into. wired.trib.al/5HZ3psI 6/
Indirect costs also include the other work that doesn’t get done during the outbreak. In Washington, that involved the poison control center’s work hours that had to be spent handling calls from people worried they had been exposed to measles. wired.trib.al/5HZ3psI 7/
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