A recent measles outbreak at a religious preschool in Vancouver with a vaccination rate of nearly zero points to a troubling trend. Large outbreaks in the past year are closely tied to pockets of unvaccinated individuals within insular religious communities, some of which have been critical of the measles vaccine, rather than statewide vaccination rates.

While some may dismiss the measles as a common childhood virus, it also happens to be the deadliest childhood rash and fever illness. To make matters worse, about 30 percent of reported measles cases have at least one complication, especially among children younger than 5 years old or adults over 20.