Cook, along with Lubbock’s director of public health, Katherine Wells, said there was no end to the outbreak that spans nine counties in Texas. “This outbreak will continue to grow,” Wells said, refusing to predict how high the final case count will be after reporters have increased their chances of hundreds.
So far, 116 of the 146 cases are under 18 years of age, and 46 are between 0 and 4 years of age. Only five out of 146 were vaccinated with at least one dose of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Messaging
In a more positive note, Wells reported that the outbreak seemed to shake up some vaccinating parents to vaccinate their children. Over 50 children came to the city clinic for the measles vaccine yesterday in Lubbock. Eleven of those children had received vaccine exemptions. This means that parents had previously gone through the state process to exempt them from having to receive the routine childhood vaccine to attend school. “This is a really good sign, and that means our message is out there,” Wells said.
So far, in the outbreaks that occurred in late January, messages about the importance of disease and vaccination have only been coming from states and local governments. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been released A simple statement Late Thursday, this was not sent via the agency’s press distribution list. However, he noted that “vaccinations remain the best protection against measles infection.”
At the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, US health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. answered questions about the outbreak and provided a variety of inaccurate information. Kennedy downplayed the outbreak and falsely insisted, “That’s not uncommon.” However, this is an unusual year for measles in the United States. As epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina pointed out in Bluesky, the number of measles cases this year has already been The total number of cases has surpassed eight years in the past 15 years.. And it’s only February.
