Unvaccinated Child Dies of Measles in Texas Outbreak
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43185045
As of 27 February (numbers published 28 February), the number of cases is close to double the annual median for this century. 164 cases so far this year with 85 as the median since 2000 (excluding this year, this year brings it to 85.5). There have only been 7 years in the previous 25 that exceeded the total so far for this year. At the current rate we're likely to see this year become 4th or 5th for this century, if not higher. Only 121 more cases needed this year to tie 2024 which would put it and 2025 tied for 4th most measles cases since it was declared eradicated in the US.
The numbers on that page are published every Friday but reflect the count from the prior day at noon. Note that they seem to enter in cases for prior weeks if they were missed or reported late. It jumped from 93 to 164 (71 new cases) but only 11 are reported for last week itself. So the count for last week is likely to be revised upward next week.
Average for 2000-2024 is 179 cases so this year is still below average for the century. However those numbers only go through 27 February at noon and, as I mentioned, may be revised upward for that period. So as of today, we likely have exceeded the average but we won't have official numbers until 7 March.
And I'm being very specific with my numbers to count from 2000 to present. If we go back further we get to before the disease was considered "eliminated". The average if we count from 1985 to present was 1966 cases per year. But that includes years like 1990 which had 27,808 cases and we've come nowhere close to that this century.