Sixteen local schools and child care centers are vulnerable to measles spread, officials warn.

Ebola has nothing on measles in terms of contagiousness. Epidemiologists have pinned the “reproduction number,” or average number of people a patient infects, at 2 for Ebola. For measles, it’s 12-18.

That’s why public health officials are taking California’s measles outbreak, which reached 73 confirmed cases by Jan. 26, so seriously. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles complications include brain swelling and pneumonia. The virus kills 1-2 of every 1,000 children who contract it.

The state tracks vaccination rates at child care centers, preschools and kindergartens. Officials have flagged 16 in Monterey County as “most vulnerable,” with less than 70 percent of students up to date on shots.

Among local kindergartens, the lowest measles vaccination rates are at Big Sur Charter School (23.1 percent) and Monterey Bay Charter School (61.5 percent). Visit www.mcweekly.com/measles for the full list.

Fifty of the state’s 73 cases are linked to Disneyland, where officials believe the outbreak originated in mid-December. The Santa Clara County Department of Health warns that one infected person went shopping at the Costco and Walmart in Gilroy Jan. 18 and a mall in Milpitas Jan. 19, potentially exposing hundreds more.

“We are in a county where lots of people like to visit, so we have a lot of traffic coming through. That increases our risk,” Monterey County Health Department Epidemiologist Kristy Michie says. “We would ask people who aren’t vaccinated or had their children vaccinated to consider vaccinating now.”