Measles is continuing its slow march across New York state, with the number of confirmed cases through September 12 rising slightly above the total for all of 2025. At least 51 cases of the potentially fatal illness have been reported to the New York State Department of Health, as shown on its new Measles Dashboard.
The state is rolling out a new effort to convince people to get vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella, attempting to counter the effects of an anti-vaccination movement that has the support of the Trump administration. A new public service announcement for the general public and new briefing for medical providers aim to raise the statewide vaccination rate.
“Sometimes, it's that people really just aren't aware where the vaccine is, or even that it's something you need to do,” said Dr. James McDonald, the state’s Health Commissioner. “Sometimes, it's because people really just don't want to get the vaccine.” McDonald calls the vaccination issue a “kitchen table issue” that can be improved through face-to-face discussion.
McDonald said vaccination rates tend to be lower in more rural areas, where people may lack the convenient availability of a vaccination center.
A study, heavily criticized for its methods, reported a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. No subsequent study confirmed those claims and even the Trump administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website, “The vaccine has an excellent safety record. Hundreds of millions of children have safely received the vaccine worldwide.”
All children in New York are required to have the MMR vaccine in order to begin public, private or parochial school. The only exception allowed is if a physician certifies that the vaccine will harm the child. The state repealed a provision allowing people to opt out of vaccination on religious grounds.
As a result, childhood vaccination rates tend to be very high across the state and have slowly been rising since the COVID pandemic. Adult vaccination rates are lower for several reasons, including the prior ability to claim a religious reason for not being vaccinated and adults moving into New York who are not vaccinated. Most of the cases of measles reported in the state involve adults.
Pennsylvania, which maintains a religious exemption from vaccination, is in the midst of a severe outbreak. Nearly 700 cases have been reported in the last six months, with four deaths. New cases are running at about 100 per week. The two counties with the most measles cases in New York sit along the Pennsylvania border.
Measles is among the most contagious diseases. 9 of 10 unvaccinated people exposed to an infected person will get measles, research shows. For that reason, outbreaks tend to start in localized clusters. Measles was declared eliminated in 2000 but has come roaring back as vaccination rates have fallen.
A new study may show health officials a way to prevent outbreaks from starting. Cornell University Professor Anna Bento and Siyu Chen, a postdoctoral research associate, surveyed more than 5,000 schools in 45 states for their rates of vaccination. They found that the countywide rates of vaccination often reported publicly hid the potential for an outbreak to start in one school. Their research was published in the journal Nature Medicine.
“Most counties in the country, even in the New York state area, seemed to be fairly safe,” said Bento. “But as you start kind of looking under the hood and looking at the school district and school level, we started noticing that many schools and many school districts were much lower in vaccine coverage.”
Lower vaccination rates meant that a single case of measles would lead to a general outbreak, instead of an outbreak fizzling out in places with vaccine coverage at 95% or higher.
Bento said the research shows health officials a way to predict where outbreaks could occur up to several years in advance, allowing them to more precisely target their efforts. “So it might be that your decision to perhaps campaign for increased vaccination might not be one-measure-fits-all,” she said. “But really thinking about some areas within the county that might require a little bit more targeting potentially to make sure that areas are well covered.”
The state Health Department does collect and publish school-level vaccination data. Bento’s research suggests that those numbers could be a starting point for efforts to prevent measles outbreaks.
