An alternative school an hour southwest of Roanoke has been allowing many of its students to go unvaccinated – allowing a rare disease to make a comeback:
A small, private Floyd County school has closed for the week after more than half its students became ill with whooping cough.
At least 30 people associated with Blue Mountain School have been diagnosed with the highly contagious disease, also called pertussis, including 23 of its 45 students, said Shelly Emmett, the alternative school’s director.
As Seth Mnookin writes, “when parents choose not to vaccinate, they are not making a ‘purely personal’ decision – they are making one that has the potential to affect everyone their children come in contact with.”
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