A state of emergency has been declared in Samoa, an island with a population just below 200,000 in the South Pacific, after a measles outbreak has infected over 4800 people and killed over 70, mostly young children.
For perspective, the U.S., a country with a population of 327,000,000 has had around 1,300 causes of measles in 2019, the country's largest outbreak since 1992.
At the time of the outbreak only 31% of the island's population was vaccinated.
To help put a stop to the outbreak the government has undergone a substantial vaccination drive in which the percentage of the population that is vaccinated has tripled to 91%.
In response to the current measles outbreak, the @samoagovt will be undertaking a 'Door to door Mass Vaccination Campaign' on Thursday 5th and Friday 6th December, 2019 from 7am to 5pm throughout the whole country.
Read full notice at https://t.co/8OUn9cD33D pic.twitter.com/cjVBfaeumu
— Government of Samoa (@samoagovt) December 3, 2019
Today, PM Tuilaepa announced the preliminary figures for the Door to Door Mass Vaccination Campaign (only).
•5 Dec – 17,551
•6 Dec (AM) – 3,089
Clarification on collection of above data and full press conference at: https://t.co/qsdplMvaNr pic.twitter.com/ww0qUpY15q
— Government of Samoa (@samoagovt) December 5, 2019
The outbreak is so serious that last week the government arrested an anti-vaxxer activist to stop the spread of false information and save lives.
RELATED: Anti-vaxxer group says the label is 'derogatory' so Twitter roasted them with some hilarious new names
Faith healer Edwin Tamasese protested the Samoan government's vaccination drive in a Faceboook post saying, "I'll be here to mop up your mess. Enjoy your killing spree."
He posted a shot from the police car after being taken in by authorities.
Tamasese was granted bail on Tuesday, December 10 on the condition he would not post anything on social media about the measles or dispense any medication.
"As government starts the mass vaccination campaign mobilizing hundreds of its public servants to transport residents to the fixed sites and mobile clinics for their injections, it is not wasting its valuable time to the nonsense on social media posted by anti-vaccination," government spokesman Afamasaga Rico Tupai said in a Facebook post.
As the government mounts a serious drive to save the island's population, especially its children, anti-vaxxer propaganda is making some reticent to be vaccinated.
"The anti-vaxxers, unfortunately, have been slowing us down," Communications Minister Afamasaga Rico Tupai said in an interview with New Zealand television station 1 News.
RELATED: Anti-vaxxers cursed at ER staff who helped their son because he was 'isolated' to protect others
"We have families [where] unfortunately children passed away, only having come to the hospital as a last resort. Then we find out it is the anti-vaxx message that has got to these families that have kept their kids at home," he said.
He urged anti-vaccination activists, "Don't get in the way of government. Don't contribute to the deaths."
While most conspiracy theories are harmless, anti-vaxxer propaganda comes with a massive price: death.
Anti-vaxxers believe that vaccines cause autism, which is categorically false. A study of over 650,000 children published earlier this year found there is absolutely no evidence that vaccinations cause autism.
Anti-vaxxers are waging an information war that's able to manipulate a small percentage of the population, but it's still a huge problem. It's just enough to compromise herd immunity enough to cause the comeback of diseases like measles which were previously thought to be eradicated in developed countries.
In a society that values free expression, we have to reconcile personal freedom with holding those accountable for spreading deadly lies that harm small children.
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Robin Williams performs for military men and women as part of a United Service Organization (USO) show on board Camp Phoenix in December 2007
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.