What is known about this outbreak and the community where itās occurring?
This outbreak started in a Mennonite community in West Texas where there are low vaccination rates. Many of the children are homeschooled or attend smaller private schools, and many are unvaccinated.
This is not atypical for the larger outbreaks that weāve seen in the United States in the recent past. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 measles cases, including a large outbreak of slightly more than 900 cases in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York. In 2014, there was a measles outbreak of 383 cases in an Amish community in Ohio.
These larger measles outbreaks tend to occur in close-knit communities with very low vaccination rates.