Texas official warns against “measles parties” as outbreak keeps growing

Cook, along with Lubbock’s director of public health, Katherine Wells, said they see no end in sight for the outbreak, which now spans nine counties in Texas, many of which have low vaccination rates. “This outbreak is going to continue to grow,” Wells said, declining to forecast how high the final case count could go after a reporter raised the possibility of several hundred.

So far, 116 of the 146 cases are under the age of 18, with 46 being between the ages of 0 and 4. Only five of the 146 were vaccinated with at least one dose of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Messaging

On a more positive note, Wells reported that the outbreak has seemed to sway some vaccine-hesitant parents to get their children vaccinated. Just yesterday in Lubbock, over 50 children came into the city’s clinic for measles vaccines. Eleven of those children had vaccine exemptions, meaning their parents had previously gone through the state process to exempt their child from having to receive routine childhood vaccines to attend school. “Which is a really good sign; that means our message is getting out there,” Wells said.

So far in the outbreak, which erupted in late January, messaging about the disease and the importance of vaccination has exclusively come from state and local authorities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only released a brief statement late Thursday, which was not sent through the agency’s press distribution list. It did, however, note that “vaccination remains the best defense against measles infection.”

During a cabinet meeting Wednesday, US Health Secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to a question about the outbreak, offering a variety of inaccurate information. Kennedy downplayed the outbreak, falsely claiming that “it’s not unusual.” But, this is an unusual year for measles in the US. As epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina noted on Bluesky, the number of US measles cases this year has already surpassed the total case counts from eight of the previous 15 years. And it is only February.