South Carolina measles outbreak ‘accelerating’ with hundreds of unvaccinated students... [SC outbreak over, US tops 2000 cases in 2026 (so far)]

ThatRobGuy · Mar 2, 2026

Hans Blaster said:
Why not? Foolishness is foolishness.

People have a tendency to want to handle certain groups with kid gloves.

Speaking as someone who lives not that far from one of the biggest Amish communities in the country (for reference, Ohio is home to one of the largest Amish communities in the US, only barely edged out by Lancaster PA)

Whenever I've made various critiques, it gets quickly labelled as a "oh, they're so nice, that's in poor taste to say anything mean" type of thing...

Most commonly when I've critiqued the fact that they don't pay taxes towards the roads, but let their horses poop all over them and clog up traffic, or about the fact that it's not uncommon for when people buy things off of them, or hire them to do work, and something is wrong, they conveniently revert back to only knowing Dutch.

Even during covid it was a similar pattern. The vaccination rates were low in that county, and that county is adjacent to two "very MAGA" counties for lack of a better term. People would critique the MAGA types in the other two counties, but wouldn't dare critique the Amish.

ThatRobGuy · Mar 2, 2026

Stopped_lurking said:
Has the Mennonite community grown as a proportion of the Texas population recently? Or why has the vaccination exemptions soared? If it instead is MAHA related, it still looks that they are trying to pump the numbers up. Why anyone ever would want to increase the susceptible pool is a mystery to me though.

I'm not terribly familiar with the Mennonite communities in Texas, I live all the way up in Ohio (where we have our own large Amish population -- the two are sort of adjacent, I've tended to refer to Mennonite as "Amish-lite")

And it's been the same deal with the Amish community up here

Vaccination patterns of the northeast Ohio Amish revisited - PubMed

The Holmes County Amish have decreasing vaccine acceptance. Efforts to improve vaccination will require a targeted focus on the primary influences and beliefs of sub-populations within the Amish. Physician advocacy, peer mentorship, father-directed education, and close partnership with Church...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

iluvatar5150 · Mar 2, 2026

ThatRobGuy said:
RFK changed his tune a bit on that last year around this time, did he not?

Vaccine critic RFK Jr. backs measles vaccine amid deadly Texas outbreak

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, is voicing support for the measles vaccine amid a deadly outbreak, mainly in Texas.

www.cbsnews.com

Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News:
"This is a measles outbreak that began in a very close-knit, rural, Mennonite community that has very low vaccination rates. And unfortunately, we have seen vaccination rates exemptions ... really soar in Texas in recent years," she said.

RFK likes to play both sides of the fence. Sure, he says that measles vaccines are good, but he also recently appointed a quack to the vaccine advisory board:

Kennedy announces new vaccine advisory committee members after meeting rescheduled

Kennedy adds two new members to the CDC's vaccine advisory committee

www.statnews.com

Anti-Vax Doctor on Newsmax Claims Covid Patients Aren't Being Treated, Says ‘That’s How You Crush a Pandemic. Not Vaccinating'

Newsmax invited an anti-Covid-19 vaccine doctor on to have a "robust debate" about science.

www.mediaite.com

...but I guess ripping on the the Amish doesn't have the same "oomph"

Mennonite != Amish. My folks have a lot of Amish neighbors and I have loads of criticisms about them. I'm much less familiar with Mennonites.

ThatRobGuy · Mar 2, 2026

iluvatar5150 said:
Mennonite != Amish. My folks have a lot of Amish neighbors and I have loads of criticisms about them. I'm much less familiar with Mennonites.

If the Texas equivalent is anything like Ohio (with have both Mennonite and Amish), it's sort of like what I mentioned before. "Amish-lite"

Based on my level of familiarity with the Ohio environment for that, they're both off-shoots of the same Swiss Anabaptist group.

If you're in Ohio, and you see someone who's dressed as if they're Amish, but they're driving a car, they're Mennonite.

essentialsaltes · Mar 5, 2026

Trump administration is failing to address spread of measles, (some) experts say

Previously, the CDC would have issued regular reports, alerts and social media posts to help people protect themselves during outbreaks like these. But CDC communications about measles outbreaks over the last year have been minimal.

For several months after the first 2025 outbreak, the CDC rarely posted about measles on its X account. One of the few measles-related posts went on the defensive, telling followers that “framing measles as an American policy failure is inaccurate and misleading” while linking to a letter to the Wall Street Journal by former CDC principal deputy director Abraham. [He's the guy that said that measles outbreaks were 'the cost of doing business'.]

“What we’ve seen in the past year is just an erosion of all capacities due to broader funding cuts, not necessarily specifically targeting measles,” Nuzzo continued.

The experts agree that due to the cuts and the delays in reporting, Americans likely do not know the full gravity of the current measles outbreaks. Nuzzo says that because the US has seen three measles fatalities so far, it suggests a much higher number of total cases than the approximately 1,100 that have been tracked so far.

One cost-effective way to fill in those gaps would be to ramp up wastewater surveillance, says Nuzzo. ... Additionally [to expired funding for wastewater testing due to the pandemic], the Trump administration has proposed cuts for this type of surveillance from $125m to $25m annually. Nuzzo said that if the administration took measles containment seriously, it would expand that funding instead.

Andrew G Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said it’s “entirely inaccurate” to suggest that the CDC had deprioritized measles.

“The CDC’s focus remains on measles prevention and treatment education and targeted public health interventions to protect communities and provide clear, accurate information to all Americans,” Nixon said.

Pommer · Mar 5, 2026

essentialsaltes said:
Trump administration is failing to address spread of measles, (some) experts say
Previously, the CDC would have issued regular reports, alerts and social media posts to help people protect themselves during outbreaks like these. But CDC communications about measles outbreaks over the last year have been minimal.

For several months after the first 2025 outbreak, the CDC rarely posted about measles on its X account. One of the few measles-related posts went on the defensive, telling followers that “framing measles as an American policy failure is inaccurate and misleading” while linking to a letter to the Wall Street Journal by former CDC principal deputy director Abraham. [He's the guy that said that measles outbreaks were 'the cost of doing business'.]

“What we’ve seen in the past year is just an erosion of all capacities due to broader funding cuts, not necessarily specifically targeting measles,” Nuzzo continued.

The experts agree that due to the cuts and the delays in reporting, Americans likely do not know the full gravity of the current measles outbreaks. Nuzzo says that because the US has seen three measles fatalities so far, it suggests a much higher number of total cases than the approximately 1,100 that have been tracked so far.

One cost-effective way to fill in those gaps would be to ramp up wastewater surveillance, says Nuzzo. ... Additionally [to expired funding for wastewater testing due to the pandemic], the Trump administration has proposed cuts for this type of surveillance from $125m to $25m annually. Nuzzo said that if the administration took measles containment seriously, it would expand that funding instead.

Andrew G Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said it’s “entirely inaccurate” to suggest that the CDC had deprioritized measles.

“The CDC’s focus remains on measles prevention and treatment education and targeted public health interventions to protect communities and provide clear, accurate information to all Americans,” Nixon said.

To be fair, the survivors will be immune.

essentialsaltes · Mar 7, 2026

essentialsaltes said:
Other hot spots outside of South Carolina include 176 reported cases in Arizona and 115 in Utah, according to state health officials.

Measles is 'worse than expected' in Utah, officials say

Measles patients in Utah are developing severe complications, health officials say, including potentially life-threatening anemia and liver inflammation [one case each].

In southern Utah, a measles outbreak that’s been simmering since last summer is showing signs of wider spread. Now, state health officials are pleading with residents to take the virus seriously.

Statewide, Nolen said that more than 120 people have gone to the emergency room over the course of the outbreak. Thirty-one people were hospitalized for at least one night, and three people were placed in the intensive care unit.

As of Friday, Utah had 358 cases in the outbreak, which began last June. It wasn’t until August, however, that the outbreak took off. Most cases have been concentrated in the southwestern part of the state, linked specifically to a tight-knit community that borders Arizona. It’s largely composed of mostly former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a sect of the Mormon church.

[but now it has expanded to SLC]

In South Carolina, the site of the nation’s largest measles outbreak in a generation, cases finally appear to be slowing. In the past week, the state only logged an additional six cases, bringing the total to 991.

essentialsaltes · Mar 8, 2026

South Carolina public health departments are doing good work. South Carolina legislators, on the other hand...

As nation’s worst measles outbreak continues, SC senators OK bill banning vaccine mandates

A separate bill banning religious exemptions for measles vaccines is ‘graveyard dead,’ as one senator put it

The under 2 years vaccines are already voluntary, but now hypothetical mandates will be pre-banned (if this passes the full state houses). OTOH, some wanted to close the religious loophole for vaccinating kids attending public schools, but that failed.

essentialsaltes · Apr 2, 2026

Measles tracker: Follow cases, outbreaks and vaccination rates across the U.S.

Already in 2026 more than 1,500 cases have been counted, making 2026 one of the two worst years for measles infections in the U.S. since 2000. [2025 was the worst at 2,285, but clearly 2026 is gaining fast with only three months down.]

The disease epicenter is now in South Carolina, where the CDC has confirmed 600-plus measles cases [in 2026 - the outbreak started last year].

essentialsaltes · Apr 29, 2026

The outbreak in South Carolina appears to be over.

CDC warns additional measles cases in US are expected amid upcoming travel season

So far this year, there have been 1,782 cases nationwide, according to the CDC.

essentialsaltes · Jun 5, 2026

US measles cases surpass 2,000 for the 2nd year in a row: CDC

So far this year, 2,030 cases have been recorded in 39 states and D.C.

Last year, 2,288 confirmed measles cases were reported for all of 2025. Prior to this, measles cases had not surpassed 2,000 in the U.S. since 1992.

essentialsaltes · Jul 6, 2026

essentialsaltes said:
US measles cases surpass 2,000 for the 2nd year in a row: CDC
So far this year, 2,030 cases have been recorded in 39 states and D.C.

Last year, 2,288 confirmed measles cases were reported for all of 2025. Prior to this, measles cases had not surpassed 2,000 in the U.S. since 1992.

2026 (2170 so far) is closing in on 2025's total, with half a year left to go.

DaisyDay · Jul 6, 2026

2026 is a winner (in the Freedom250 sense). Go MAHA!

Akita Suggagaki · Monday at 8:04 AM

As of July 23, 2026, 2,318 confirmed measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026.
For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed measles cases were reported in the United States.

Measles Cases and Outbreaks

Find the latest numbers of confirmed U.S. measles cases. CDC updates this page weekly.

www.cdc.gov

essentialsaltes · Wednesday at 3:14 PM

Akita Suggagaki said:
As of July 23, 2026, 2,318 confirmed measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026.
For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed measles cases were reported in the United States.

Now I'd like to see the Venn Diagram for

Conspiracy Theorists who argue against the measles vaccine
and
Conspiracy Theorists who argue that pharma companies want to sell you a treatment, rather than a cure.

South Carolina measles outbreak ‘accelerating’ with hundreds of unvaccinated students... [SC outbreak over, US tops 2000 cases in 2026 (so far)]

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Trump administration is failing to address spread of measles, (some) experts say​

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