Gaines County in West Texas is at the heart of the ongoing measles outbreak. Non-medical vaccine exemption rates there are high.

Measles was considered to be eliminted in the U.S. in 2000, thanks to vaccine developments. But vaccination rates have dropped since the covid pandemic began.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Department of Health and Human Services, downplayed the seriousness of an ongoing measles outbreak in Texas, falsely claiming that people had been hospitalized “mainly for quarantine” and misleadingly stating that the situation is “not unusual.