Prepare for Local Measles Cases; What’s Elon’s DOGE End Game? Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: March 13, 2025

Indy Digest: March 13, 2025

There are innumerable messed-up things I could write about today—and today’s scary-topic selection is measles.

It’s 2025. A safe and effective vaccine has been around for many decades. As a result, the federal government and the WHO had declared the disease to be eliminated in the United States.

Yet because of unfounded anti-vaccine sentiments, we now have headlines like “Measles at LAX: L.A. County resident had highly contagious disease when arriving at airport.” And I feel a need to reiterate a warning that some people should now consider getting measles booster shots.

As for that headline, from the Los Angeles Times … the story says:

Public health officials have confirmed the first case of measles in a Los Angeles County resident this year — the second infected person known to have passed through Los Angeles International Airport in 2025.

A county resident who traveled while infectious arrived at LAX in the Tom Bradley International Terminal (Terminal B) on a China Airlines flight March 5, the L.A. County Department of Public Health announced Tuesday.

Measles is a viral infection that spreads through the air and via droplets. It can potentially lead to serious health complications, including death. The virus can spread when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes, or a person can contract it by touching an infected surface, according to the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The story also includes details on other places this person went. If you’ve been in L.A. this month, you may want to take a look.

Oh, and if you’ve been in Fresno, you may also want to take a look. That Los Angeles Times piece says:

California now has five reported cases of measles as of March 11 amid an expanding measles outbreak in the U.S.

That total includes Fresno County’s first reported case, announced Tuesday. The person had recently traveled internationally and became infectious days later, but public health officials are not disclosing where the person traveled to and at what airport he arrived.

Fresno’s interim health officer said the person’s travel history isn’t relevant because he became infectious unknowingly on March 2 and had attended a religious convention in Madera County where hundreds of people were in attendance. The man checked into a local hospital on March 7 where he was diagnosed. The infectious Fresno County resident was not immunized for measles.

Sigh.

The good news: Most of us don’t have to worry about the disease much, as long as we’ve been vaccinated. As for the bad news … Yale Medicine says:

People born before 1957 are considered to have “presumptive evidence” of immunity, because nearly everyone born during this period got the disease during childhood. But health-care workers born before 1957 who don’t have proof of immunity should consider getting the vaccine.

Older children, adolescents, and adults born after 1957 should get at least one MMR shot if they have never had the measles or been vaccinated for the disease (or aren’t sure if they have)—that is, if they don’t have written documentation or other proof of immunity, according to the CDC. Among these individuals, certain groups should get two MMR shots at least 28 days apart; this includes people at high risk for exposure, including students at post-secondary institutions, health-care workers, international travelers, and women of childbearing age before they become pregnant.

Anyone 6 months or older should be vaccinated if they are in an area where an outbreak is occurring. If they will be traveling internationally, the CDC provides advice on being fully vaccinated before they leave, regardless of their destination.

Another group that may be at risk is adults who were immunized between 1963, when the first measles vaccine was approved, and 1967. During that period, some children received an inactivated (killed) measles vaccine that was less effective than the live vaccine. If you know that you got the inactivated vaccine and not the live one, or aren’t sure, you should get at least one dose of the live MMR vaccine, according to the CDC.

Meanwhile, we have a Health and Human Services secretary who has gone on Fox News and “downplayed the seriousness of measles and touted fringe theories about prevention and treatment, like the benefits of vitamin A and cod liver oil over the measles vaccine, which is the only proven way to prevent infection,” as reported by The Hill.

Here’s hoping that one day, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gets put on trial for murder because of his anti-vaccine spewings. But in the meantime, given everything that’s happening, it’s only a matter of time before measles arrives in the Coachella Valley—if it hasn’t already.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Wired magazine just published a huge piece on Elon Musk’s “Digital Coup.” The sub-headline: “Musk’s loyalists at DOGE have infiltrated dozens of federal agencies, pushed out tens of thousands of workers, and siphoned millions of people’s most sensitive data. The next step: Unleash the AI.” Lengthy but key snippet: “In Musk’s mind, Washington needed to be debugged, hard-forked, sunset. His strike teams of young engineers would burrow into the government’s byzantine bureaucratic systems and delete what they saw fit. They’d help Trump slash the budget to the bone. … In the days and weeks that followed, DOGE hit one part of the federal government after another. … An estimated tens of thousands of federal employees were effectively fired or resigned. ‘This is a digital coup,’ one USAID source told WIRED at the time. Along the way, DOGE also gained access to untold terabytes of data. Trump had given Musk and his operatives carte blanche to tap any unclassified system they pleased. One of their first stops: a database previously breached more than a decade ago by alleged Chinese cyberspies that contained investigative files on tens of millions of US government employees. Other storehouses thrown open to DOGE may have included federal workers’ tax records, biometric data, and private medical histories, such as treatment for drug and alcohol abuse; the cryptographic keys for restricted areas at federal facilities across the country; the personal testimonies of low-income-housing recipients; and granular detail on the locations of particularly vulnerable children. What did DOGE want with this kind of information? None of it seemed relevant to Musk’s stated aim of identifying waste and fraud, multiple government finance, IT, and security specialists told WIRED. But in treating the US government itself as a giant dataset, the experts said, DOGE could help the Trump administration accomplish another goal: to gather much of what the government knows about a given individual, whether a civil servant or an undocumented immigrant, in one easily searchable place.” This piece is a must-read.

• Snowbirds are a large part of the Coachella Valley economy. Well, given everything the Trump administration is doing to piss off Canadians for no good reason, we can probably kiss that chunk of the economy goodbye. ABC News says: “Canadians who are in the United States for 30 days or longer and cross the land border will soon have to register their information with the U.S. government, according to a notice obtained by ABC News. Foreign nationals who plan to stay in the U.S. for longer than 30 days will be required to apply for registration with the federal government and be fingerprinted starting on April 11, according to the rule, which was posted on the federal register on Wednesday. … Rosanna Berardi, an immigration attorney based in Buffalo, New York, told ABC News her firm has heard from many Canadians who have expressed ‘strong disappointment’ in the new rule. ‘It’s important to clarify that this measure specifically impacts Canadian citizens crossing land borders who intend to remain in the United States for periods exceeding 30 days,’ she told ABC News. ‘Casual travelers visiting for tourism or shopping will not be affected. However, Canadian business professionals who regularly enter the U.S. for extended assignments will now face these new registration requirements.’“

• Columbia University just issued a warning to foreign students that should send a chill down the spine of anyone who cares about freedom of speech. The New York Times says: “Days after immigration officers arrested a prominent pro-Palestinian campus activist, administrators at Columbia University gathered students and faculty from the journalism school and issued a warning. Students who were not U.S. citizens should avoid publishing work on Gaza, Ukraine and protests related to their former classmate’s arrest, urged Stuart Karle, a First Amendment lawyer and adjunct professor. With about two months to go before graduation, their academic accomplishments—or even their freedom—could be at risk if they attracted the ire of the Trump administration. ‘If you have a social media page, make sure it is not filled with commentary on the Middle East,’ he told the gathering in Pulitzer Hall. When a Palestinian student objected, the journalism school’s dean, Jelani Cobb, was more direct about the school’s inability to defend international students from federal prosecution. ‘Nobody can protect you,’ Mr. Cobb said. ‘These are dangerous times.’”

• Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency has more or less decided to no longer protect the environment. The Associated Press breaks down the 31 changes announced by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin yesterday. Here’s just one: “Zeldin vowed to review his agency’s emissions standards for cars and trucks, calling the tightened emissions rules the ‘foundation for the Biden-Harris electric vehicle mandate.’ Nothing the Biden administration implemented required automakers to make and sell EVs or for consumers to buy them. Loosening standards would allow vehicles to emit more planet-warming greenhouse gases, but many automakers have already been investing in making their vehicles more efficient.”

• COCKTAIL BREAK! St. Patrick’s Day is Monday, but many will be celebrating the holiday this weekend, with lots of green. Here’s a list of 40 cocktails, complements of Delish, you can make to celebrate the occasion. To be honest, some of them look pretty terrible, although No. 17, the Last Word, is pretty tasty. And if you don’t drink alcohol, no worries: The list includes mocktails as well!

• The Associated Press has a warning about a spate of toll-road collection scam text messages: “Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks said last week that a threat actor has registered over 10,000 domains for the scams. The scams are impersonating toll services and package delivery services in at least 10 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario. While Apple bans links in iPhone messages received from unknown senders, the scam attempts to bypass that protection by inviting users to reply with ‘Y’ and reopen the text. A warning last April from the FBI said the texts used nearly identical language falsely claiming that recipients have an unpaid or outstanding toll. Some threaten fines or suspended driving privileges if recipients don’t pay up.”

• And finally … I used to be a huge fan of Southwest Airlines, despite the company’s problems. However, due to the changes announced this week—most notably the end of free checked bags—Southwest will soon be just a normal crappy airline (with subpar technology). I completely agree with this excellent piece by Emma Ruby, of the Dallas Observer, a fellow (now ex-) fan of Southwest. Key passage: “In the last year, the hedge fund investor has pressured the airline into a corner, aiming to increase profitability through $500 million in cost cuts. This is a fundamental misunderstanding, or disregarding, of why Southwest worked in the first place. Herb Kelleher, the airline’s founder, was no moron. He knew how to build a profitable product. However, the beauty of Southwest was the company’s conscious decision to walk away from policies that might increase profitability but harm the customer experience. Does Southwest lose $9 every time a flight attendant gives me a free mimosa? Sure, but I haven’t flown any other airline domestically in years.”

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