Is Measles Spreading In Amish Communities? Nobody Will Officially Say, But The Stories Suggest “Yes”
Stories about measles in places where the Amish live keep popping up on my news feed, at a seemingly increasing pace. They’re showing up in different regions of the country – the East coast, Northeast, Midwest.
They have titles or sections suggesting that an outbreak may be happening in or around “Amish Country”, but nothing really directly saying “the Amish are experiencing a measles outbreak”.
So most of them mainly allude to a possible Amish connection, most never actually making it. They point out lower general vaccination rates among the Amish, and note how cases have been occurring in areas with significant Amish or Plain Mennonite populations.
Suggestive, But Never Stated
We saw an example last week in a story out of Wisconsin, where an outbreak is growing in Iowa, Grant and Lafayette counties. Wisconsin Public Radio noted that more than 3,000 Amish live across those three counties, but only went as far as this: “One community in the region that may be affected by lower vaccination rates are the Amish and Mennonite faith groups.”
The most prominent story so far was the New York Times reporting two deaths of “unvaccinated people” from measles in Lancaster County, PA earlier this week, but no direct Amish connection was made there either.
There is often a privacy roadblock – understandable – where the local health authority says they will not disclose further details. The closest official direct communication that I have seen – still not directly naming members of the Amish community as suffering from measles – was the June story where the Virginia Department of Health publicly warned people to “stay away” from an upcoming Amish-run auction.
Still, that was framed more as an “avoid large crowds” warning, as the Buckingham County area where the auction was being held was experiencing an outbreak. This also feels a good bit different than the 2014 Ohio measles outbreak, which was directly tied to the Amish community and pretty heavily covered in that context.
Direct Claims Of Measles Among The Amish
So all that noted, I’ve only come across two stories where there is a direct connection, anecdotally. One of them was published today at CNN, with commentary from an Amish taxi driver (a person who drives the Amish places) named Kimberly Reichenbach:
For the past few years, she’s made a little money driving Amish customers on their regular errands. Many Amish people shun certain kinds of modern technology, and Reichenbach says many now use ride services to get around.
But Reichenbach said she quit driving altogether last week after she and her longtime partner, who has type 1 diabetes, separately drove clients who were sick or who had been exposed to measles.
At the end of one trip, one woman said she was grateful to be able to pick up groceries because her whole family had measles and she wanted to restock her pantry before she too became too sick to get out of bed.
Reichenbach expressed understandable concerns about getting sick herself – leading her to shut down rides:
Last week, another client she drives to and from her job at a bakery got into the car coughing and sneezing.
Her client said that it was just a cold and that was getting better, but Reichenbach said her explanation didn’t ring true.
“I even came home that day and said to my boyfriend, ‘I’m really concerned about this because I know that, especially in Lancaster, it’s starting to get bad,’” she added. “I canceled everybody.”
Another came out yesterday in the Finger Lakes Times, referencing an outbreak in an Amish community in Seneca County, New York. This was briefer, and the Seneca County Public Health Director Scott King, while acknowledging there are dozens of community members likely sick with measles, also refuses to identify anyone.
However, the paper reports that “it is known” through conversations that members of the Amish have been among those ill:
King was asked for an update at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors’ Health and Human Services Committee meeting. For privacy concerns, he has said he could not and would not identify the county’s large Amish community specifically as being the group of unvaccinated individuals.
However, it is known that most members, for religious reasons, have been resistant to receiving the MMR vaccine, as well as others vaccines. And, through anecdotal conversations since July, it is also known that members throughout the Amish community have been ill with measles.
What I’ve been hearing suggests something similar, that there are cases among the Amish, maybe a lot. Other stories suggest Amish connections, but without a direct claim of illness, such as this report of an Amish mother inquiring about vaccination in Tioga County, New York.
Reasons For Caution
We’re not getting official direct confirmation due to privacy concerns, but local people are saying Amish folks they know are dealing with it. That said, when the measles topic is prominent in the media, as it is right now, people are probably more likely to think “measles” when they encounter an ill person from one of these afflicted communities.
That doesn’t mean they’re wrong, but it could lead some to assume that an illness is measles when it isn’t. And we need to emphasize again that it’s not that all Amish reject vaccination – some in the greater community do get vaccinated against measles and the like.
A doctor in Lancaster County also has a counter-take on the matter – Pia Fenimore, vice chair of pediatrics at Lancaster General Health, has said the current outbreak there is not centered in Amish households, and that vaccine skepticism has spread widely across Lancaster County generally.
Mark Louden, a UW-Madison professor who works as an interpreter for Wisconsin’s Plain communities, put it this way in that same WPR story:
“Even the most conservative or traditional groups out there do access Western healthcare. While there may be some families that have their kids not vaccinated at all, that’s pretty exceptional.”
He calls them “vaccine cautious” rather than anti-vaccine – more likely to pick and choose among the shots than refuse them all.
Louden also notes the connections between Wisconsin Amish communities and Lancaster County, PA:
“There’s a lot of back and forth, just like people traveling back and forth, visiting and so forth, especially this time of year,” he said.
That’s a common thing among Amish around the country, with many having ties to communities in other states. And that may be why we’re seeing reports of measles in areas with Amish populations that are quite far from one another.
I think we may have seen a version of this during COVID. There was no real way to precisely count what was happening in Amish communities. A team of West Virginia University sociologists ended up going through obituaries published in The Budget newspaper to build an idea of how the Amish were impacted. Nobody had a clear picture at the time, though later studies were able to piece some of it together.
Even without official confirmation, I think it’s reasonable to assume that measles outbreaks to varying degrees have been happening in different Amish communities. And it may not become clear to what degree until (and only if) someone is able to take a more systematic look into the story.
As the doctor said, the cases of measles in Lancaster is not centered in Amish communities.
The cases of measles didn’t start in the Amish communities. Outsiders most likely brought it in.
Tourism being strong this year(world cup soccer as one example), there were a lot of people from other countries visiting.
Also, the demographics of Lancaster is changing. There are more people from other countries living in the area. Not getting into to political issues, however, the demographics have changed greatly and many new people in the area may not have been vaccinated.