Congratulations. Let’s send RFK Jr a cake made of beef tallow and cyclospora to celebrate.
The United States has now recorded more cases of measles in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000, a grim sign that the country may be headed toward a new era in which the disease regularly sickens thousands every year.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that there have been 2,318 confirmed cases of measles so far this year. The case count toppled the record set last year, when measles infected more than 2,200 Americans and killed two unvaccinated children. More measles cases have been reported in the United States in the last two years than in all the years from 2000 through 2024 combined.
Reversing course on measles would require a nationwide push to improve vaccination rates, a prospect that experts said seemed unlikely under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He has halted funding for vaccine hesitancy research, downplayed the risks of measles and spearheaded a hunt for evidence that vaccines are unsafe.
In November, a panel of international experts will meet to determine whether the United States has lost its elimination status, which has long been viewed as one of the country’s crowning public health achievements.
“This is just going to keep happening,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. “It’s going to mean living in a perpetual state of vulnerability and risk until we get vaccination levels up.”
Many of the cases reported this year were tied to a large outbreak in South Carolina that took root last October in a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community and quickly became the largest outbreak in the United States since 2000. The outbreak, which ultimately sickened nearly 1,000 people, was declared over by state health officials in April.
Still, the virus is far from contained. Utah is fighting an outbreak that began along its border with Arizona last summer and has led to more than 700 cases, spread across every jurisdiction in the state. Virginia health officials have reported more than 170 cases from an outbreak that began in mid-May. Pennsylvania is grappling with an outbreak that has sickened more than 100 people this year.
In total, the C.D.C. has reported 35 new measles outbreaks this year. A vast majority of cases have been in people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccine status was unknown.
Not a surprise, unfortunately, and other outbreaks are sure to follow, as vaxx rates keep declining. There’s really not much for me to say, so let me round up a few other stories.
From NBC News:
New measles outbreaks are popping up in Arizona, Delaware and Wyoming. The Pennsylvania Health Department is reporting 132 cases, with 27 diagnosed in the past week alone.
Virginia’s outbreak that took off in May appears to be slowing. The state has logged 177 cases, but hasn’t reported any new ones since July 4.
Piedmont Health District, located in central Virginia, has accounted for the majority of that state’s cases. The district health director, Dr. Maria Almond, said her staff has painstakingly gone door to door, encouraging vaccinations to stop the outbreak.
“We go into homes, we listen to their needs, we educate, and we continue to monitor those families and revisit them because they are reluctant to engage in medical care until they are ready and feel safe,” Almond said. “Very often, we are able to link families with care resources.”
The CDC has sent staffers to help with outbreaks in several states, including Virginia. The federal health response to ongoing measles outbreaks, however, has been minimal. The CDC has been without a permanent director for the majority of President Donald Trump’s second term, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic, has distanced himself from news of ongoing outbreaks.
“Last year and this year would not be as bad if we had strong, well-funded local public health departments and a CDC that was well-staffed and ready to respond to outbreaks,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatrician and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases.
[…]
But this year’s surge in measles cases has been driven largely by an outbreak that hit the northwest corner of South Carolina, in an area known as the Upstate. Cases began last fall before accelerating wildly just after the Christmas season.
“From the get-go, you’re just thrown into the fire,” said Dr. Stuart Simko, a pediatrician at Prisma Health in Greer, South Carolina. “Measles spreads a lot more rapidly and more efficiently than Covid ever could, and that was the scariest part.”
Simko had never seen a case of measles before the state’s outbreak that ultimately infected 997 people. He said he and his colleagues had to learn to spot a child with measles quickly. “It looks like the flu on steroids,” he said. “They’re covered in a rash, their fever is at 104, 105. They just don’t have any energy.”
While the majority of measles cases have occurred in children and teenagers, Piedmont Health’s Almond said that adults can also get very sick.
“This community’s really felt it in their adults with severe nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration,” she said. “It is terrible and severe.”
There isn’t a circle of hell deep enough for RFK Jr. I hope someone is figuring out what criminal charges he could be arrested for in 2029.
From CNN:
South Carolina has reported more measles cases in 2026 than any other state. An outbreak started raging across Spartanburg County in October; it would become the largest the largest the US has seen in decades, with nearly 1,000 cases, before ending in April this year.
Geographically speaking, the Rev. Scott Neely’s Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg was right in the center of the outbreak.
He said he felt insulated from it at first, but on the first Friday of 2026 – the day after New Year’s Day – the state health department reached out because there had been a connection: Contact tracing work showed that someone with measles had attended the church’s annual Christmas brunch, potentially exposing dozens of people who were there.
“This was a strange experience of how segmented our society is,” he said. “An outbreak was garnering national attention right where I live but having almost no immediate impact on me. That’s not about lack of care or lack of awareness. It is about a kind of separation, isolation, and the way that we’re all living.”
The South Carolina Department of Public Health asked for a list of all the people who were at the brunch so its workers could continue their investigation, following the chain of exposures to hopefully get ahead of it and prevent more.
There was no such list, though. The annual Christmas brunch was a potluck led by volunteers from the congregation and open to anyone in the community who might be looking for a place to be on Christmas, Neely said. They didn’t know everyone who attended.
Rapid messages were sent between leadership and staff, and within a few hours, someone shared a photo they had taken of the room. It took a full team effort to help identify people in the photo and collect contact information to share back to the health department — a frantic race against one of the most contagious diseases known to humans began.
Neely said he didn’t hear any more from the state health department; transmission didn’t seem to have spread beyond that one instance, which he attributes to the very high vaccination rate within the congregation.
“There were nerves, and there was anxiety, and there was some disagreement, but the concluding story was vaccinations work and cooperative spirit gets us very far,” he said. “But also it really brought to our immediate attention that this is in our community, it’s all around us, and we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
[…]
In South Carolina, Neely knew that the “vast majority” of his congregation was vaccinated. But after the scramble in January, they wanted to become actively involved in the response and started hosting mobile vaccination clinics.
“I’m not sure we were able to quantify what the actual impact of what we did was. I don’t know that it would be a significant numerical impact,” Neely said. “It’s a story of a community that was trying to figure out what to do in real time and people who are very willing to work together to try to do it.”
I’d support Rev. Neely as the next HHS Secretary. At least he wants to do right and inspires the same in others.
And from KFF Health News, conversations with doctors in Utah fighting the outbreak there.
On Unvaccinated Children Hospitalized With Measles Complications
Emilie Morris, a hospital pediatrician in Salt Lake County and Utah County: When children come in, they’re often bent over. We call it tripoding, which is particular to upper respiratory infections and airway swelling. They have a rash — viruses cause rashes all the time — but in this context, the kid is hunched over, mouth open, drooling, crying, maybe not even producing tears, because they’re so dehydrated. Really labored breathing, kind of tugging in their belly, tugging between their ribs. Their eyes look kind of glazed over. It’s like they’re seeing through you.
Nathan Money, a hospital pediatrician in Salt Lake County and Utah County: If the child has a fever or trouble breathing, and they’re unvaccinated, I have to be way more aggressive from a medical standpoint, because they are at higher risk of having life-threatening illnesses. I have to do more blood work, or lumbar punctures to rule out meningitis. I have to do things which are painful, and it’s traumatic for the families.
I tell them, “Because your child doesn’t have vaccines, I have to be more worried about conditions like sepsis or meningitis, so therefore I need to do more workup.” The last thing I want to do is miss something. These are parents who love their children. They always tell me, “Do what you need to do to make sure my child is safe.”
[…]
On Conversations With Parents Who Don’t Vaccinate Their Children
Tim Duffy, a pediatrician in Salt Lake County: A lot of families aren’t aggressively anti-vax, but they’re hesitant. Younger parents who grew up in the digital age have done their research — “research” in quotation marks — for months. And they keep getting confirmation of their concerns on social media. They think they’re doing what’s best for their child.
I’ve told families: “You could do nothing I say as a pediatrician. You could sleep your child on their stomach. You could not put them in a car seat or, when they’re older, not use seat belts. You could do nothing I say, and for your individual child, they will probably be OK. But from my standpoint, where I’m taking care of thousands of kids, within a system that takes care of hundreds of thousands of kids, we will have bad outcomes. These children will show up at our facilities, and it’s so sad.”
Pediatrician in southern Utah whom KFF Health News agreed not to name, because of concerns about harassment after being targeted by anti-vaccine activists in the past: A lot of parents are concerned about autism. I’ve told them that I’d be very concerned if there was any evidence that what we’re doing is causing autism. But if vaccines were causing autism, we should see more cases of autism in vaccinated kids compared to unvaccinated kids, and we’re just not seeing that.
I’ve also had families who say they want to be natural, or that they’re concerned about what is in the shots. A frequently asked question is: “Did you vaccinate your children?” I say that knowing what I know, I’m confident giving this to my kids. They’re all vaccinated.
[…]
Advice on Talking With Parents Who Don’t Vaccinate Their Children
Jones: Approach them with as much compassion as you possibly can. Ask open-ended questions to learn about their experiences that led them to have these concerns. I think it’s really important to not come down on them, citing facts and figures and pointing to guidelines on why they need to get their kids vaccinated. But try to direct their attention to the fact that you’re a real person with your own real experiences and knowledge. I point out to families that I have my own kids, and I would never recommend something for your kids that I wouldn’t do for mine.
Southern Utah pediatrician: I’ve learned that if you come down hard, you’re going to lose people who need care. My number one goal now is to build bridges and maintain a relationship with families, because that’s what’s going to allow me to convince some of them.
I approach people differently depending on where they are. Parents who are very skeptical or anti-vax will say no when I tell them their child is due for immunizations. I’ll say: “Fine. You guys get to choose. You’re the parents. But I’m curious to know what your reasoning is.” Sometimes they’re just like, “It’s something I’ve decided.” They don’t want to have a conversation.
It’s a good day if I can have a conversation with someone who doesn’t want to vaccinate, even if I don’t convince them. I try to help them think through things rather than shoving anything down their throat. When they’re done talking, I’ll ask, “Can I share my perspectives on this?” Some will say yes enthusiastically, and others will say yes because they’re being polite.
A lot of parents aren’t sure what to do, and those are the people I focus most of my time on. I focus our conversation on their specific concerns, and I’m open about specific side effects that different immunizations can have. For example, I’ll tell them that some children get a fever after a vaccine, which is OK. The fever is not harmful, but it can make babies feel crummy as their body is building up antibodies against viruses and bacteria.
Brownstein: I don’t like the idea of excluding unvaccinated kids from my practice. I know some do that. But what that does is it ends any future discussion. I can’t keep talking with parents about vaccines if I kick them out of my practice, and if these parents find like-minded doctors, this situation will get worse.
Nothing has tested my capacity for compassion like the anti-vaxx movement. I’m glad there are people who have the patience and willingness to talk to the vaccine-hesitant people out there, because I would just Hulk out on them, and I know that would be very bad. God bless these people for taking this on.
