Over the weekend, the tally of measles cases reached 1,281, setting a new case record since the highly contagious viral disease was declared eliminated from the country in 2000. The previous record was set in 2019, when there were 1,274 cases and officials warned that the US had narrowly avoided losing the elimination status.
Overall, the current case tally is a 33-year high for the preventable infection, and the outlook for the country is bleak. Vaccination rates have only fallen since the pandemic, and the top health official in the country—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—is an unswerving anti-vaccine activist who has spent his short time in the position so far spreading dangerous misinformation about the measles vaccine—as well as peddling unproven treatments and downplaying the infection.
Experts expect that the US will lose its elimination status, which will occur if the virus spreads uninterrupted for 12 months. To block transmission, experts say populations must maintain vaccination rates of 95 percent or higher. But, nationally, the vaccination rate among kindergartners has fallen to 92.7 percent in the latest data, with some communities having vaccination rates far lower, leaving them vulnerable to widespread outbreaks.
Such is the case in Gaines County, Texas, where the largest outbreak this year has erupted. So far, that outbreak, which spans four states, accounts for at least 950 of the country's 1,281 cases.
But, overall, there have been a whopping 27 outbreaks in the country just in the first six months. According to national data compiled by researchers at Yale School of Public Health, as of July 6, the 1,281 cases are across 39 states, with around 90 percent of the cases associated with one of the outbreaks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reports a national measles case count but only updates its numbers on Wednesdays. According to the CDC's latest data, at least 155 people have been hospitalized for the infection, and three people have died—two otherwise healthy young children in Texas and one adult in New Mexico. All three deaths were in people who were not vaccinated.
Overall, most of the cases in the country are in unvaccinated children and teens. About 28 percent of cases are under the age of 5 and about 37 percent are ages 5 to 19. Of all the cases, 92 percent were in people who were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status.
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