A Southern California day care has shut down because an infant therewho’s too young to get vaccinatedcontracted measles, another case in the re-emergence of the disease on the West Coast.
The Samohi Infant Toddler Center inside Santa Monica High School, a facility for 24 young children of students and staff members, closed Monday after it was learned that a baby under 12 months old being care for there had measles. It’s not clear when, where or how the child got the disease.
Nor is there any timetable for when the center will reopen, but it’s possible that children who have been immunized against the highly contagious virus could soon go back.
In addition to the baby with measles, 13 other infants who went to the day care center are being quarantined for 21 days as a safeguard.
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Over the last school year, 3.3% of California kindergartners — about 18,200 — were allowed to skip their shots, according to the CDC. Schools are encouraged to have “an up-to-date list of pupils with exemptions, so they can be excluded quickly if an outbreak occurs,” the California Department of Public Health says.
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CNN’s Traci Tamura, Steve Almasy and Stella Chan contributed to this report.
