This week marks one year since a measles outbreak in West Texas set off a chain of events that public health experts say has changed the country’s relationship with a disease many Americans had stopped thinking about. Since then, the U.S. has seen new measles cases every single week — with large and growing outbreaks in states like South Carolina and along the Utah-Arizona border, and more than 2,000 cases nationwide last year alone. Most of them were in people who were not vaccinated.
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States back in 2000. Still, today that status is at risk and public health leaders are warning that declining vaccination rates, mistrust of medicine and policy choices are making it harder to stop the virus from spreading.
Here in Idaho, where vaccination rates are among the lowest in the country and state law limits vaccine mandates, the question is no longer whether measles could return — but how prepared we are if it does.
Dr. David Pate, the former CEO of St. Luke's Health System and the author of the book "Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak," joined Idaho Matters to help us understand what this moment means for Idaho and the rest of the country.
