Put another state on the board, Johnny.
Montana is the ninth U.S. state to have an active measles outbreak.
The U.S. was up to 800 cases of measles nationwide on Friday. Texas is driving the high numbers, with an outbreak centered in West Texas that started nearly three months ago and is up to 597 cases. Two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children died from measles-related illnesses near the epicenter in Texas, and an adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated died of a measles-related illness.
Other states with active outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Mexico. The U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.
[…]
Montana state health officials announced five cases Thursday in unvaccinated children and adults who had traveled out of state, and confirmed it was an outbreak on Monday. All five are isolating at home in Gallatin County in the southwest part of the state.
State health officials are working to trace exposures in Bozeman and Belgrade.
They are Montana’s first measles cases in 35 years. Health officials didn’t say whether the cases are linked to other outbreaks in North America.
That was from Friday, so the overall case numbers are now out of date. Here’s your Tuesday update.
The measles outbreak centered in the South Plains region of Texas surpassed 600 cases on and spread to one new county on Tuesday, health officials said.
The state has now seen 624 cases since the outbreak began in late January, according to latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Most cases have been in children who have not received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or whose vaccination status is unknown.
The state added 27 new measles cases since the last DSHS update on Friday. The update includes the first two cases in Bailey County, located just south of the Panhandle.
Sixty-four people have been hospitalized for treatment amid the outbreak and two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl, died after contracting the virus.
Fewer than 10 of the Texas who have contracted the virus — less than 2% of the total — are believed to be actively infectious, according to the DSHS. An individual may be infectious up to four days before a rash appears and up to four days after it’s gone.
The Texas outbreak has also been linked to cases in neighboring states. New Mexico reported 65 measles cases on Tuesday, while Oklahoma reported 13. New Mexico has reported one suspected measles death, an unvaccinated adult who tested positive for the virus after dying.
Fifteen of the 27 new cases reported on Tuesday are in Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak. The county has now seen 386 cases, nearly 62% of all cases associated with the outbreak
Five new cases are in Lubbock County, which has now seen 47 during the outbreak.
El Paso, Terry and Bailey counties each reported two new cases. Ector and Midland counties each reported one.
The update removed one case from Dawson County, which has now seen 23 cases during the outbreak. The DSHS has said its numbers are provisional, and cases may be removed if further investigation reveals the person did not have measles.
The DSHS said there is ongoing measles transmission in 10 counties across the state: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Lynn, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum.
Of the 624 cases in Texas, 186 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 236 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17, according to the DSHS.
Only 22 cases have been in people who received at least one dose of MMR vaccine prior to an infection.
Texas has seen 25 measles cases in 2025 that are not connected to the South Plains outbreak, most of them associated with international travel, according to the DSHS. Four have been in Harris County and two were in Fort Bend County.
This Bloomberg News headline (paywalled story) says that the “spread is slowing”. I’d agree that the last two weeks or so have seen smaller numbers in the biweekly reports of new cases. I’m cautious about using terms like that because I think it gives people the idea that this means it’s coming to a halt, and that is definitely not the situation. It doesn’t appear to be accelerating, and that is very good. That’s as far as I’ll go for now.
The US is not the only country facing outbreaks.
Canada has documented over 730 cases of measles since the beginning of 2025 until the present. This is one of the most severe outbreaks since the country declared the virus eradicated in 1998.
The outbreak, which began in late 2024, has disproportionately affected Anabaptist communities, stated a New York Times report. The NYT report stated that as per Ontario Ministry of Health, Amish and Mennonite groups ..
The NYT report added that Mexico, in the meanwhile, has reported at least 360 cases. The majority of these occurrences have occurred in the northern state of Chihuahua, with one verified death.
Reportedly, the local health authorities said that the outbreak originated from a nine-year-old in a Mennonite community. The boy, the report stated, had recently travelled to Texas which is reeling under a massive measles outbreak.
I believe this is the NYT story in question; it too is paywalled. Contagious disease + unvaxxed community that travels = outbreaks all over the place.
And we can’t do one of these posts without reminding you again that RFK Jr and his various acolytes are truly terrible people.
A Texas doctor who has been treating children in a measles outbreak was shown on video with a measles rash on his face in a clinic a week before Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met him and praised him as an “extraordinary” healer.
Dr. Ben Edwards appeared in the video posted March 31 by the anti-vaccine group Kennedy once led, Children’s Health Defense. In it, Edwards appears wearing scrubs and talking with parents and children in a makeshift clinic he set up in Seminole, Texas, ground zero of the outbreak that has sickened hundreds of people and killed three, including two children.
Edwards is asked whether he had measles, and he responded, “Yes,” then said his infection started the day before the video was recorded.
“Yesterday was pretty achy. Little mild fever. Spots came in the afternoon. Today, I woke up feeling good,” Edwards said in the video.
Measles is most contagious for about four days before and four days after the rash appears and is one of the world’s most contagious diseases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors and public health experts said Edwards’ decision to go into the clinic put children, their parents and their community at risk because he could have spread it to others. They said there was no scenario in which Edwards’ conduct would be reasonable.
Kennedy met with Edwards about a week after the video was posted by Children’s Health Defense, the group Kennedy led for years until December. In an April 6 post on X, Kennedy said he “visited with these two extraordinary healers,” including Edwards and another doctor, and praised their use of two unproven treatments for measles.
Even as measles has exploded in Texas and spread across the country, Kennedy, the nation’s top health official, has declined to consistently and forcefully encourage people to vaccinate their children and remind them that the vaccine is safe. Kennedy’s post drawing attention to Edwards is inappropriate but unsurprising given Kennedy’s record, said Dr. Craig Spencer, a medical doctor who is also a professor at the Brown University School of Public Health.
“I think is unfortunately perfectly on-brand for how he thinks that medicine should be practiced,” Spencer said. “And that is what makes me remarkably uncomfortable and extremely concerned and scared for the next three-and-a-half years.”
Same. But you know, the people that flock to this guy have agency. They have all of the facts available to them. They just choose not to believe them. It’s absolutely true that this guy sucks and that he’s working every day to make things worse for the rest of us. We still have to decide whether or not to follow him. Too many people get that wrong.
Anyway. The Trib has some charts for you. I’ll have another update on Saturday.