The nation is struggling to control the spread of the wildly contagious virus as vaccination rates continue to fall.

The U.S. has officially logged 982 measles cases in 2026, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. It’s more than four times the number of cases as this time last year, when a large outbreak was just beginning in West Texas.

Twenty-six states have reported cases so far this year. Large outbreaks continue to grow in Utah, Arizona and, most notably, South Carolina, where the virus has been spreading since the fall. As of Friday, the state had reported nearly 800 cases since January, bringing the outbreak’s total to 973.

It’s the largest single measles outbreak the U.S. has seen in a generation.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    With that control, they can exert influence over what those doctors and hospital employees say publicly, especially when it comes to potentially controversial topics like vaccines.

    Why the fuck is accepted science “controversial”?

    I’m so sick of that word.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

      Unfortunately, a nation of morons decided to use the Internet to “do their own research” in the stupidest way possible and then start electing people at least as stupid and as ignorant and as unqualified as they are. Because they’d rather have a beer with a loudmouth dumbass.

      Having poindexters in office that might know a thing or two and have an education and experience and qualifications, or rely on such types before they go speaking out of turn is considered “elitist” by the same morons that think an alleged billionaire is NOT elitist. In the upside down universe of idiots, being one of the very few billionaires is not elitist, but having an education is. 🙄

      I hate it so much that many people would rather have someone they view as their intellectual equal (or even dumber) in office, vs. their superior. I happen to want people I think are smarter and more qualified and educated and experienced than I am. I cannot understand why you would want anything else. But no, people prefer morons because they don’t want to be “talked down to”.