The title question relates to a current political controversy, but it is nonetheless a factual question.
It is blazingly obvious to me that the probability is quite low in the United States today. But I think a much better, supported, answer to the question must be possible other than to say “quite low.”
Most of the numbers needed to reason this out are in this article:
I also think that the fact a baby with measles died of a ruptured spleen (spleen problems being associated with measles) is irrelevant to the answer of the thread title question, much as it does illuminate that one case.
Just to hint at my incomplete thoughts here: If measles was extremely common – say, one percent of Pennsylvanians currently had the illness – it would then be plausible – even certain – that people in such a large group often died of something other than measles. It is because measles are still on the rare side that measles victims having died of something else is unlikely. Am I thinking correctly? And, regardless, can we put defensible numbers on the probability?
I don’t know the numbers, but for the question in the title, you’d want the time that an active measles case remains active, and then the probability of a person of the appropriate population dying in that timespan.
Though in this case, it might be more appropriate to ask for the probability of a non-measles patient to die specifically of a ruptured spleen, in that time interval.
Deaths due to measles are commonly the result of “something else” - namely pneumonia or encephalitis caused by other organisms that take hold once the child is weakened by measles, i.e. through immune system damage.
Splenic rupture secondary to splenomegaly due to measles is certainly a possibility, one that only the infant’s medical caregivers and a competent pathologist can attest to - not the coroner’s office or the governor.
By confidently asserting that both deaths were due to measles without also supplying the public with solid backing evidence, Pennsylvania health officials and Gov. Shapiro opened the door to antivax conspiracy theorists and fabulists, who are all over social media promoting their garbage.. These are the same people who assert without merit that large numbers of pandemic deaths were wrongly attributed to Covid.
Big failure by Pennsylvania officials here.
This is a good article; hopefully the gift link applies.
Web search indicates that symptoms start about two weeks after exposure and continue for, on average, maybe another two weeks.
As for the probability of a person dying of a ruptured spleen during a two week period, web search says the range of possibilities is large because those who die with a ruptured spleen mostly have multiple traumas, such as from a terrible auto accident. I of course have no idea whether the baby who died from a ruptured spleen had measles as the only risk factor, or if the baby also had trauma. That’s one reason I do not want to focus on a particular case. While the medical literature strongly implies that measles increases spleen rupture risk, we do not know enough to generalize, and all the facts about any particular case are unlikely to be revealed to the public.
As for the probability of death in general for Americans who are aged matched to measles patients, , I do not have that. If I did, I could answer the thread question myself. AI numbers that I double-checked told me there are 344 deaths per million Americans over a two week period. but this is of course tremendously higher that what it would be if we age adjusted for the measles population, due to that population skewing young. For one thing, boomers like myself are almost all immune to measles due to having gotten this extremely contagious disease before a vaccine was available. But I do not know how to put numbers to that.
The case by case approach is hopelessly impractical, which is why I started this factual thread. The county coroner is a Republican elected in a partisan contest, and the parents of kids who died unvaccinated are hardly likely to agree to an autopsy by a pathologist who would almost surely be associated with a pro-vaccine institution (Penn Medicine/University of Pennsylvania and/or Philadelphia medical examiner office). Maybe if the coroner was strongly advising an autopsy at Lancaster General, which is a Penn Medicine affiliate, they would agree, but he will not because of politics. That’s the problem, not that he is Family Medicine board certified.
I believe the solid backing evidence can only come from population analysis. Those who are bad at math will be unable to follow the analysis, but we cannot help that.