Unvaccinated teen banned from school during chickenpox outbreak now has the illness [View all]

CINCINNATI - The high school senior who went to court to challenge a health-department restriction over chickenpox at his Walton school has come down with the illness, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Christopher Wiest of Covington said Jerome Kunkel, 18, got sick with chickenpox last week, nearly two months after the Northern Kentucky health department issued its order to control an outbreak at two small parochial schools in Boone County.

“He’s fine. He’s a little itchy,” Wiest said.

In January, chickenpox broke out at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School and Assumption Academy, its high school. The schools and its church are affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X, a conservative branch of Roman Catholicism that rejects Vatican II reforms.

Nearly 90 percent of the schools’ students have religious exemptions against vaccinations. The exemption form warns that the health department can restrict school attendance in case of an infectious disease outbreak.

Read more: https://www.reporternews.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/08/vaccine-lawsuit-kentucky-student-has-chickenpox/1145459001/
(Abilene Reporter-News)