offit: absolutely.is in perspective, there is something called the contagiousness index, how many people would you infect assuming you are infected and everybody is susceptible for diseases like covid and influenza -- susceptible. produces like covid and influenza it's three, measles is 18. william: i don't want to date you, but i know you had measles as a child before the vaccine. for people who don't remember, in your mind is how serious of a virus or what talk about? dr. offit: before there was a measles vaccine in 1963, every year in the country there would be three to four cases of measles and 3000 to 4000 people hospitalized and 500 people died, mostly children. they died from severe dehydration, severe pneumonia, or inflammation of the brain. it is a terrible disease and i think what we are suffering right now is not just because we are seeing measles in the manner of before, we don't remember measles. we don't room or how sick the virus can make you. william: one of the things we've also seen is