Apr 09, 2026
3 min read
Normalization and apathy from the Trump administration make health experts less optimistic that measles can be contained
Measles is back in the US, and infection rates don't seem to be slowing down.The country has surpassed last year's measles infection rate.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated data showing that as of April 3, 2026, the number of measles cases in the US has exceeded 1,600.Last year, the CDC confirmed 2,286 measles cases in all of 2025, which represents the highest number of cases since 1991, but we are already on track to break that record.In addition, the Trump administration delayed a major assessment of the country's measles-free status until the midterm elections.
According to a CDC report, 17 new outbreaks were reported in 2026. Notably, 94 percent of confirmed cases are “outbreak-related,” with the majority of cases occurring in outbreaks that began in 2025.In 2025, 11 percent required hospital treatment.There were no deaths from measles in 2026, but three people died from the disease in 2025. This year, 92 percent of cases came from unvaccinated people.
As previously reported, experts stress that measles is not just a fever and rash, as anti-vaxxers portray it online.An estimated one in four infected people are hospitalized.In severe cases, it can cause complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis (swelling of the brain that causes seizures, hearing loss, and mental retardation), and can even lead to death.All of these can be prevented through vaccination.
The measles vaccine, which usually includes the mumps and rubella vaccines, is very effective.After two doses, about 99 percent of people are protected from infection.Although the vaccine was first developed in 1963, until 1980 all 50 states had laws requiring measles immunization for school enrollment.But thanks to a thoroughly discredited British doctor who claimed to document behavioral changes in children with the MMR vaccine, the so-called "Wakefield effect," some of this progress was undone.
Before the measles vaccine was widely available in the United States, about 400 to 500 children died each year from measles and its complications.Public health experts said they are concerned that measles infections are already endemic and normalized under the Trump administration, and that we will see outbreaks as frequently as in the 1990s.
“Many schools are now in a position where even one case is enough to trigger a permanent transfer.”
"I think we're going backwards before we go forward," Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and author of the newsletter Your Local Epidemiology, told Salon.
Currently, the current administration's lack of prioritization and the post-Covid-19 cultural moment, in which anti-vaccine rhetoric has spread like wildfire on the Internet, contributed to a lack of confidence in vaccines and public health—the creation of a Covid-19 vaccine is a remarkable medical feat.
"Since the pandemic, we've seen the number of children without protection against measles almost double, and at the school level, the conditions for continued spread have passed around 2022," Dr. Anna Bento, assistant professor in the Department of Public Health and Ecosystem Health at Cornell University, told Salon."This means that many schools are now in a situation where one imported case is sufficient to drive ongoing transmission."
Bento co-authored a pre-press article that analyzes the recent surge in cases across the country, analyzing databases from 45 states that include more than 50,000 schools in 3,000 districts.He said he hoped the situation could turn around and that the outbreaks were very "sustainable" - but only if the country acted quickly to bring them under control.
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"From a scientific perspective, there is real hope: the measles vaccine is very effective, and the U.S. is starting with average coverage," Bento said.
Public health experts and researchers are not convinced that the situation will improve under the Trump administration.In February, the American Academy of Pediatrics asked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about promoting the measles vaccine and providing more support to outbreak areas as cases rise.
"Federal public health officials are needed to stop the spread of measles to vulnerable children across the country – and they are using every tool and platform at their disposal," Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the AAP, said in a letter to Kennedy.
From anti-vaccine nonprofits to those who profit from vaccine injury cases, Kennedy has no record of supporting vaccines.In a 2025 Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, Kennedy made several false statements about the measles vaccine.The 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa and Kennedy's involvement in the crisis underscored his views on the measles vaccine.At Kennedy's 2025 Senate confirmation hearings, he said the trip had been heavily criticized in Samoa "as having nothing to do with vaccination."Dokumenti do kojih su došli The Associated Press i The Guardian diskreditirali su dokaze.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told he is not hopeful the outbreaks can be contained at this point.
"I think endemicity is inevitable and smallpox will circulate at the same level as in the 1990s," said Adalja. "People choose this fate."
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Illness is when infections are recurring, such as the common cold.Of course, measles and influenza are not even remotely comparable, and this is precisely the problem with major diseases being eliminated as usual.Gitellina agreed that it was going to get worse before it got better.
"Measles becomes normal when it becomes a disease," he said."At the end of the day, as a society, we're not going to pay attention to the count, and it's not going to be in the news."
Measles was eliminated from the US in 2000, but the country is likely to lose its elimination status.This status is granted by the Pan American Health Organization, and the United States can only retain it if it can demonstrate that the virus has not spread in the country for a consecutive year.
"I think it is almost guaranteed that we will lose our status," Jetelina said."It's heartbreaking because it's a road sign that we're going backwards."
But she is "confident" that the earth will eventually recover."But it will take time," he said.
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