“The plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good.”

— “The Plague,” Albert Camus

In Albert Camus’s philosophical 1947 novel, “The Plague (La Peste),” a doctor named Bernard Rieux finds a dead rat on his doorstep. Then he confronts another rat bleeding from the mouth before dying. When a colleague dies of a fever, the doctor suspects a lethal disease bringing a potential epidemic. Camus’s novel explores average citizens quarantined in an unremarkable town facing death from a virulent contagion. It is the ultimate fictional treatment of an existential crisis where individuals have to face the meaning of existence and death.

This is not a book report, however.

According to the Washington Post, “Public health officials have long known that the United States has pockets of vulnerability where the risk of measles and other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases is higher because parents hesitate or refuse to get their children immunized” ( June 13, 2018).

Recently, Idaho made national news for a disturbing statistic. Idaho is the state with the highest number of unvaccinated children. If a few children are not vaccinated, they can survive with a “herd immunity,” but if the number grows, there is the possibility of serious infections from diseases once considered eradicated. One standard vaccine is the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella). The 2014-15 California outbreak of measles infecting 125 unvaccinated children was traced to Disneyland. People traveling to foreign counties where vaccinations are uncommon can return to the United States with a disease like measles, not only deadly for children but often causing fatal neurological complications in later years. Because of the measles outbreak, California banned the personal belief exemption for vaccinations, and cases subsequently dropped. If it’s any comfort to Pocatello residents, Bannock County was not on the list of top 10 Idaho counties with unvaccinated children.

Why does Idaho have the highest exemption rates? Why would any parent opt out of vaccinating their children? In 1998, there was concern about a possible link between autism and vaccinations, but numerous studies disproved that connection. Idaho law still allows “a parent/guardian to claim an exemption from immunization requirements for their child for medical, religious or other reasons.” If a medical reason is valid, the religious reason is questionable because no major religion has an anti-vaccination policy. Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood transfusions but have not come out against vaccinating children, and even Christian Scientists who believe prayer can cure illnesses have not officially opposed vaccination.

What, then, is the reason for some Idaho parents not allowing their children to be vaccinated? Have they been alarmed by conspiracy theorists, or is it just an unawareness of the danger because many of these diseases like pertussis (whooping cough) have been dormant for decades? Each unvaccinated child is like one more guard taken off the wall surrounding a city.

“It’s alarming to see the rise in exemption rates across this country, putting communities at greater risk,” said Amy Pisani, director of the vaccine-advocacy organization Every Child by Two. “Parents need to understand that timely vaccines are critical to protecting children’s health and should be at the top of the family’s to-do list” (Idaho Statesman).

In Camus’s Kafkaesque horror story, the decimating disease finally runs its course and the survivors rejoice, but regarding the plague, Camus warns “the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city” (Camus, pg. 320).

Are we close to a similar crisis point in Idaho?

Michael Corrigan of Pocatello is a San Francisco native and a retired Idaho State University English and speech communication instructor. He studied screenwriting at the American Film Institute and has authored seven books, many about the Irish American experience.