Hundreds of U.S. students quarantined amid measles outbreaks

A bubbling measles outbreak in the upstate of South Carolina has forced 153 unvaccinated children out of the classroom and into quarantine for a minimum of 21 days

A bubbling measles outbreak in the upstate of South Carolina has forced 153 unvaccinated children out of the classroom and into quarantine for a minimum of 21 days.

In Minnesota, where a small outbreak has been growing for the last month, 118 students are also under quarantine in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area after being exposed to the highly contagious virus, health officials said Friday.

The restrictions mean three weeks of remote learning as parents monitor for fever, rash and other symptoms.

“Communities are having to bear the price of quarantining so many children,” said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert and the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “Expect more of the same. This is going to happen more and more frequently.”

On Thursday, the South Carolina Department of Public Health said that a measles case had been diagnosed in Greenville County, without any known link to seven other cases in neighboring Spartanburg County.