You might assume that many religious groups are doctrinally opposed to vaccination. Why else would a majority of states allow for religious or philosophical exemptions to school vaccine mandates? But that is not accurate. The Mennonite leadership, as Anton pointed out, is not against vaccines — and neither are most other major religious groups. The U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches made a statement in 2021 regarding the Covid vaccine that “our confession of faith and our current and historical practice do not provide the necessary rationale for granting a religious exemption based on the theological convictions of the denomination” (italics theirs).
This isn’t the first time that undervaccinated religious groups have been at the epicenter of measles outbreaks. In 1991 a Philadelphia measles outbreak killed nine people in two church communities that did not believe in any medical intervention. In 2018 and ’19, an outbreak in Brooklyn took root among undervaccinated Orthodox Jews.
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