Only 10 cases nationally last week
Health officials in Colorado say the state’s measles outbreak is over, and the U.S. added just 10 confirmed cases nationally in the last week.
The national count on Wednesday (July 23) stood at 1,319, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Earlier this month, the U.S. passed the count for 2019, when the country nearly lost its status of having eliminated measles.
So far in 2025, there have been seven confirmed cases in New York City and seven in the rest of the state, including four cases in Orange County, one in Suffolk County, one in Ontario County and one in Putnam. All but one of the cases outside of New York City were children under the age of 5.
The Putnam County Department of Health issued a health alert on June 4 for an exposure to measles on May 28 at Arturo’s Tavern in Mahopac, but no further cases were detected. At the time, New York had 13 confirmed cases; there has been another in New York City since.
A vast majority of the national cases in 2025 have been in Texas. Eleven other states have active outbreaks, which the CDC defines as three or more related cases. There have been three deaths this year: two elementary school-aged children in West Texas and an adult in New Mexico. All were unvaccinated.
Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.
Cases and outbreaks in the U.S. are frequently traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. The CDC said in May that more than twice as many measles cases have come from outside of the U.S. compared to May of last year. Most of those are in unvaccinated Americans returning home.
Measles has a harder time spreading through communities with high vaccination rates — above 95 percent — due to “herd immunity.” But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their children from shots.
