The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 5,182 measles cases in the United States for 2026 as of Nov. 5, according to the agency's weekly tally — the first time the national count has topped 5,000 since 1991, and more than double the 2,289 cases recorded in all of 2025.
The week-over-week increase alone was substantial: 330 new cases, a 6.8% jump from the 4,852 reported a week earlier. The CDC has now identified 43 separate outbreaks in 2026, with confirmed cases spread across 45 states and the District of Columbia. Roughly 562 people have been hospitalized, about 11% of all cases, and the agency says 96% of this year's infections occurred in people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown.
Vaccination rates have been slipping for years
The resurgence tracks a longer decline in childhood immunization. National kindergarten vaccination coverage for measles, mumps and rubella fell from 95.2% in the 2019-2020 school year to 92.4% in 2025-2026, according to the CDC's own case data — below the roughly 95% threshold public health officials say is needed for herd immunity against one of the most contagious viruses known.
The death toll from this year's outbreaks has become a point of dispute inside the federal government. The CDC's figures show four measles-associated deaths in 2026, but reporting on the agency's data says the CDC initially listed the deaths before removing them after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. questioned whether measles was the actual cause. State health departments have continued to report fatalities independently; Pennsylvania's health department logged its sixth measles-associated death of the year on Nov. 4, according to a roundup from Contagion Live, a figure that sits outside the CDC's disputed national count.
The practical consequence is being weighed in Washington and in Geneva alike. The Pan American Health Organization is expected to decide this month whether the United States keeps the measles elimination status it earned in 2000, a designation that requires interrupting the virus's continuous spread for at least a year. An analysis flagged by the University of Minnesota's infectious disease tracking center concluded the U.S. is highly likely to lose that status this year — a largely symbolic marker, but one no country has had to relinquish and then reclaim since the Americas region was declared measles-free in 2016.
