None of the above texts seemed to me to be focused on the actual thing that caused Canada to lose its measles elimination status, which is the rampant spread of measles among old-order religious communities, particularly the Mennonites. (Mennonites are basically, like, Amish-lite. Amish people can marry into Mennonite communities if they want a more laid-back lifestyle, but the reverse is not allowed. Similarly, old-order Mennonites can marry into less traditionally-minded Mennonite communities, but the reverse is not allowed.)

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When the Mennonites are brought up as a cause for the outbreak, it really puts a damper on the mood. The general sentiment both in the reddit comments and in the papers seems to be something like "oh, they're weird religious people, and therefore immune to logic about vaccines", but also "well you can't say mean things about religious people", so your only choice is to like, seethe in a corner?

But in reality, Mennonite parents do not want their children to die of measles, and they do not want to contract measles themselves. It seems to me like the largest barrier for them getting medical care and vaccination is that they are not fluent in English, they speak Low German.

[...]

If your measles outbreak comes from this sort of community, the solution isn't to fearmonger about anti-vaxxers. It is to train up and hire health care workers who can speak Low German. (To be clear, I think the PHUs are doing this, or at least the Ontario ones are. It's just the media industry that is kind of cluelessly fearmongering.)

In Alberta (another Mennonite population centre, and not coincidentally the other large site of the outbreak), there has been a 25% increase in demand for medical care in Low-German, and service has expanded from five to seven days a week.

In Ontario, three quarters(!!!!!!) of the 700 Mennonite community clients helped by a Low German-speaking personal support worker have agreed to be vaccinated.

And, like, yeah, to be clear, there are loads of Mennonites who are actually anti-vaccine. I am not disputing the obvious fact that, in religious communities, many people are against vaccinations. And 75% falls short of the 92-94% vaccination rate needed for herd immunity. But a 75% vaccination rate is much, much higher than I'd have hoped for?