Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on the United States' measles cases and a remarkable rescue

The United States is battling a measles outbreak as the disease surges across the country. 

Experts are saying a post-covid anti-vaccine movement is contributing to the rising numbers. 

So far the disease has been confirmed in 30 states. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold joins the show to discuss how the country's tackling the outbreak.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's Richard Arnold. Good morning to your Richards Andrew, good morning.
Welcome to our King's birthday. You don't celebrate that over there.
I see that America is having problems with measles.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Yeah, you know, for years has been not much talk
about measles. A vaccine for the disease was developed back
in sixty three. At its widespread use worldwide brought the
number of cases down to just a trickle. Now, though,
cases are surging again here in what largely is seen
as the impact of the anti vax movement and the
US government's Centers for Disease Control. The CDC has just

(00:51):
issued a travel warning. They say if people are traveling internationally,
they should make sure they are vaccinated or consider postponing
the trip. Back in the early nineteen sixties in this country,
there were up to two million measles cases a year
and some four hundred deaths annually among those infected. Then
the numbers were reduced to only a handful. So that's
what we've known most of our lives. But this year

(01:12):
there has been a series of alerts in Texas and
Iowa and Nebraska and elsewhere. Several other states included, and
these are areas where immunization rates have falled, there among
the lowest in the country. This year, the number of
cases has hit one thousand and eighty eight on the
present count, and there have been three deaths, so that's
the first time in decades that numbers have reached anything

(01:33):
like this. Measles also is emerging again as a probably
be in some other countries. One of the latest cases
here saw of three individuals, including a child under the
age of five, getting measles after being exposed on a
Turkish Airlines flight to Denver in Colorado. Doctor minish but
Tell of the CDC says measles can be deadly. Measle

(01:53):
can be severe no matter what your age.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
You can have an infection of the lungs, swelling of
the brain known as encephalitis, and unfortunately death well.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Measles also is very contagious. That virus can linger in
the air for as long as two hours, so that
makes it big problem in confined spaces as you can
imagine as well. It can be in your system for
up to twenty one days before you experienced symptoms. So yeah,
it is a big problem. Even before this traveler that
the measles vaccine was very much in the news here
because of the theories promoted by the current Trump Health

(02:23):
Secretary Roc Junior. He is the one who has said
that maybe it would be best if everyone had the measles,
because if you get it, you're immune for the rest
of your life, provided you survive. Right these days in government,
RFK has changed his tune just a little bit, admitting
now that he had his own children vaccinated even as
he was speaking out against that vaccine.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yes, we just recently had an outbreak here in New
Zealand and it happened on a ferry and we had
all sorts of alerts of very serious disease. Last time
we had an outbreak in Auckland, it caused two deaths
in New Zealand, and of course recently in some More
we had a measle's outbreak. Eighty three people died over there,
and it's preventable by a vaccination.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
And that was a situation where Robert Kennedy Jr. Was
involved as well. He went over there and he gave
some advice and then we saw the tragic results of
people not being vaccinated, and Kennedy has tried to distance
himself from the advice he gave at that particular time.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
All I just have something a little bit more positive
this King's birthday. You have a tail of a remarkable rescue.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Yeah, this is amazing. Kel Morris, who was sixty one,
was out hiking in Alaska with his wife. It was
a philly, remote area. The rock slide began on the
trail and Kell lost his footing wound up tumbling in
the midst of all that debris, and finally he was
pinned under a giant boulder. It was on his leg,
his left leg. His bones weren't broken, but he was
half submerged in glacier waters as well. He says the

(03:53):
rock had him really caught, was pressed and pinching up
against the bone. Well, Fortunately, he says Kel, of the circumstance,
there was enough flat rock underneath the leg to keep
it from breaking it. But at the time I thought
for sure any second was gonna break. However, he looked
like he was going to be stuck there for good,
and he was partly underwater. His wife Joanna, did as

(04:13):
much as she could to sort of prop his head
up support him. Then she took off, trying to get
a signal on her phone, which she soon did, but
they were a long way out and emergency crews would
have taken about an hour to arrive if they hurried.
That's when a local helicopter pilot heard the radio call
and volunteered to fly in a rescue team. The rescuers
were dropped to the ground as the chopper was hopping overhead,

(04:35):
so it was quite a situation. They found that Kell
was in a bad, bad state. Found on mister Morris,
face down in the creek just above freezing waters. He
was hypothermic, He was in and out of consciousness, not good.
They used air bags, ropes, and brute force to get
him out and take him off to the hospital where
get this, he had only a few scratches and some
minor nerve damage. Kel saying he was hugely grateful to

(04:58):
all who intervened and saved him, but he says none
of this will stop hi venturing in the future back
into the great outdoors.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Good, ma'am, and I thank you so much. Richard Arnold
from the United States of America.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
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