According to the July 22 Johns Hopkins University’s U.S. measles tracker, there have been 2,295 confirmed measles infections in the United States so far in 2026, making it the worst year since 1991. Last year had the biggest outbreak in two decades with 2,289 confirmed measles cases, but that tally has been surpassed in just six and a half months. As with many previous outbreaks, countless cases go unreported and state health officials fear that the current measles outbreak is much bigger than the statistics suggest.
Experts see a phase change in the spread of measles with widespread, sustained outbreaks which are not confined to a remote, isolated community of unvaccinated people. Lower vaccination rates have made the disease more difficult to contain. Most U.S. doctors have never seen a single case.