We are Losing the Current Battle With Measles as Well as the Long-Term War

Measles in the US in 2026 is an acute public health problem with a large number of cases today and going back through last year—with no end in sight. Immunization rates for the measles mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines continue to decline, and this has been brought on by years of anti-vaccine rhetoric, and more recently, the pandemic, that brought about both disinformation and misinformation around the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

This background combined with the current government stance and its actions associated with vaccines make an already tough situation that much more worse to fight this vaccine-preventable disease. Paul Offit, MD, the director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), is concerned that today’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not operate as it has in the past and sees 2 major issues with the federal agency: a lacking disease surveillance operation, and no efforts for mobilization to help those in areas where vaccination is needed.

“I think Robert F Kennedy Jr has shredded the CDC, including its surveillance systems, number 1. Number 2, normally the CDC would be able to identify high risk areas and send immunization clinics into those areas. And I'm worried that we're not able to do that.”

Last week, the CDC reported there were 588* cases of measles in the US in 17 jurisdictions, and last year there were 2,267 confirmed* measles cases in the US in 45 jurisdictions.

It remains to be seen what this year will look like in terms of the total number of cases, but Offit says there is a seasonality that runs with the disease.

“I know typically, measles is a winter/early-spring disease. so I think the numbers are only going to get worse up until maybe April or May,” Offit said.

He saw pediatric patients during the 1990-1991 Philadelphia measles outbreak where his hospital and the other children’s hospital in the city were overwhelmed with cases. During that outbreak, there were more than 1400 cases, with a majority in unvaccinated children, and led to 9 children dying.¹ Within that outbreak, 486 cases and 6 measles-associated deaths were reported to the Philadelphia Health Department from members of 2 fundamentalist church communities. The 2 communities promoted "a reliance on prayer, not medical care, to cure disease."¹

During that outbreak, Offit said there weren’t any interventions that slowed it down. “I think it was the season that stopped it. I don't think it was anything we did,” he said.

Vaccines: A War of Words and Ideologies

Offit says the misinformation and disinformation surrounding the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines made many people change their perspective on vaccines. And as a result, we are losing herd immunity.

“I think that the COVID pandemic fueled, if you will, this so called medical freedom movement, which is, I'm going to make a decision that's best for myself and my family, independent of how it affects your family, and independent of whether or not that's the best decision.”

“I think it's a real breakdown, in some ways, of a societal feeling. You know that you care about your neighbor, knowing that you may be sitting on the bus next to somebody who can't be vaccinated because they're getting chemotherapy for their cancers or immune suppressive therapy for their autoimmune diseases, [or] you may get on an elevator with something like that, and you don't care. And I think that's the tension. The tension is, on the one hand, you have public health where you care about your neighbor, and on the other hand, you have medical freedom where you don't. I think the COVID vaccine supercharged that notion of medical freedom,” Offit said.

*It is important to note, the CDC says on its site that the federal agency is aware of probable measles cases being reported by jurisdictions. However, the data on this page only includes confirmed cases jurisdictions notified to CDC. Therefore, there could be higher numbers in the overall US.

Reference
1. 1990–1991 Philadelphia measles outbreak. Wikipedia. Accessed February 3, 2026.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990%E2%80%931991_Philadelphia_measles_outbreak