Epidemics Lurking Around Every Corner
With measles rates rising as rapidly as they did in the spring of 2025, medical professionals have been put in a difficult position, unsure of whom to screen for the illness and how to respond. There are several reasons why a measles outbreak in Alberta is a uniquely complicated issue compared to other illnesses in other places. As it stands, the total number of confirmed measles cases in Alberta alone exceeds the number of cases in the two most densely populated states in the United States, California and Texas combined. This is not an issue of inadequate science, for this is not an indestructible virus; rather, this is an issue of choice. People are opting out of immunizations at alarming rates and they often make the same decision for their children.
New Brunswick and Ontario require routine childhood vaccinations for children to enter school systems. This is not the case in Alberta. In New Brunswick, regional health authorities require guardians to vaccinate their children against measles under the Public Health Act (2009), while in Ontario, guardians are responsible for reporting their children’s vaccinations to school boards under the Immunization of School Pupils Act (2021).
Canada introduced a universal immunization program in 1983 and declared that measles had been eradicated fifteen years later in 1998. The country’s elimination status can largely be credited to mass immunity due to high vaccination rates. Part of what makes Alberta’s measles rates so alarming is the speed with which the disease is spreading, with 52 confirmed measles cases in 2026 alone as of February 7. In addition, cultural attitudes about vaccines are shifting as trust in science, government, and medical delivery wanes.
Alberta’s unique culture of doubt is well reflected in Danielle Smith’s $2 million COVID-19 data review task force which aimed to investigate the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine. To dramatically summarize Smith’s task forces’ legacy, they ultimately advocated for “treatments” that had been scientifically debunked, rather than a vaccine approved by the Public Health Agency of Canada; a vaccine that doctors have been administering internationally for decades. Rather than encouraging Albertans to vaccinate themselves and their children, Smith’s team recommended treating COVID-19 with antiparasitic ivermectin, an approach promoted by US right-wing conspiracy theorists.
Despite the Government of Canada’s immediate contradiction of Smith’s teams’ supposed medical expertise, vaccine hesitancy lingers. Declining vaccination rates are not merely the result of internet misinformation and conspiracy theory; rather, “vaccine hesitancy” encompasses any decision to avoid getting vaccinated. The reason one might abstain from getting a vaccine can be as elementary as changing the immunization schedule or making immunization sites difficult to access, hindering vaccine uptake even among people who would otherwise choose to vaccinate themselves and their children.
By the summer of 2025, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) updated Canada’s immunization guide to include an addendum pertaining to post-exposure prophylaxis. In practice, this added section means that doctors are obligated to discuss vaccines with patients and guardians. Guardian is a key word since children younger than five are the most vulnerable age group to die from measles while being simultaneously too young to make medical decisions for themselves. Young children and babies are the most at risk for developing irreversible side-effects, including brain injuries, deafness, and blindness.
Of course, no policy challenge is complete without nuance. If treated within six days of exposure, the chances of becoming ill decrease. However, reactive treatment is not the most effective way to protect populations in the long-term. If people are unwilling to take the preventative route by getting vaccinated, they will be encouraged to prevent contact completely. In other words, a social-distancing measure may come into effect, especially in labour and delivery units.
Behaviourally, measles and COVID-19 are very different. Measles is one of the most contagious pathogens. The measles strand is uniquely interesting in that it is relatively preventable and controllable. Measles deaths are rare, but a low mortality should not allow officials to overlook Alberta’s poor epidemic prevention strategies. Being apathetic to contagions has never ended favourably in this province.
If having a healthy population is something Alberta strives for, it is important to introduce protections in order to keep vulnerable populations safe by requiring vaccination status for access to certain spaces.
Enforcing stricter preventative practices to address measles will help Alberta navigate epidemics and pandemics in the future. Populations grow, strands mutate, and pathogens migrate. As we should have learned by now, there will always be another disease lurking around the corner.
Author: Cecil Krauskopf is a current Master of Public Policy student at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.
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