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Good evening. And right before we dive into these wild measles stats from across the country, I'll quickly mention that our team here at the Epoch Times recently put together and published a great documentary on Charlie Kirk. It's called Truth Under Fire, and it basically traces the origin of the extremist labels that were imposed on Charlie. And it pinpoints the timeline of how that smear campaign, how it actually unfolded, and how it eventually culminated in his assassination. If you'd like to check out that documentary which not only traces the life of Charlie, but also sort of paints a picture of the media more broadly, I'll throw a link to it. You can find it down in the description box below. And now getting into today's actual topic. If you've been to a hospital recently like I have, you've probably seen a sign or a notice like this one warning you about a measles uptick happening across the country. And before we dive into what's actually driving this uptick, what Let me give you a brief history of measles here in America. Quote In 1912, measles became a nationally notifiable disease in the United States, requiring US Healthcare providers and laboratories to report all diagnosed cases. In the first decade of reporting, an average of 6,000 measles related deaths were reported each year. In the decade before 1963, when a vaccine became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. It is estimated that 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year. Also, each year, among reported cases, an estimated 4 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized and 1,000 suffered encephalitis, which is swelling of the brain from measles. Measles was declared eliminated, which is the absence of continuous disease transmission for greater than 12 months from the United States in the year 2000. This was thanks to a highly effective vaccination program in the United States and as well as better measles control in the Americas region. Meaning as a practical matter that we went from having millions of infections and thousands of deaths per year to effectively completely eliminating the disease altogether within the time span of about half a century. It's pretty impressive. However, it's worth noting that although measles has effectively been eliminated here in the US Looking at it globally, it does still claim the lives of approximately 130,000 people every single year, mostly in Sub Saharan Africa as well as in parts of both south as well as Southeast Asia. But as I noted at the top of the episode, it appears that what was once an almost eradicated disease here in America is unfortunately starting to make a resurgence. To that end, on Wednesday, December 31st. So basically on New Year's Eve, the CDC came out and they announced that the number of measles cases here in the US has climbed to over 2000 in the year 2025. Specifically, according to the update that was released over on the CDC website, you had state and local officials report a total of 2,144 confirmed measles cases throughout the US in the year 2025. Now, that might not sound like a lot, but if you look at historical trends, it actually is. There has not been a year in the U.S. with over 2,000 measles cases since since 1992. And in fact, if we look at the number of measles cases from 1992 up until the year 2025, we'll see that the previous peak was in 2019 with only 1,274 cases. Those 2019 numbers, by the way, they were fueled by several outbreaks here in New York State. But still, even with those outbreaks, 2019 only saw roughly 1300 cases. 2025, however, saw roughly 2,200 cases. And so the question naturally becomes why? And well, after parsing the data and looking a bit more granularly, we find that these cases come in clusters, specifically from 49 geographically bound outbreaks. The biggest area for these outbreaks happens to be in northwest Texas. In fact, Texas as a state recorded a whopping over 800 cases just by that state alone. And just as an aside, the majority of these Texas cases were were actually connected to a Mennonite community in the northwest part of the state, with members there getting vaccines at a much lower rate than both the rest of the country, but also the rest of the state. Quote, the CDC says that measles cannot spread well in areas with at least 95% coverage, a concept known as herd immunity. Among kindergarteners nationwide, the measles vaccination rate dipped to 92.5% in the 20242025 school year. In some parts of the country, rates are even lower. In Gaines county, where the Texas outbreak started, the rate was 82%. That small snippet is a perfect example of the post Covid dip. Basically, after those trying years, so many more people trust the government less and all the recommendations that there has been a huge dip in measles vaccinations. However, it's worth mentioning Texas is not alone. As of this recording, there are still several outbreaks and episodes happening across the country, including several outbreaks. Over in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, you have several cases. Over in Platte County, Nebraska, you have a possible measles exposure over at a hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And of course, there is right now a relatively large outbreak happening in the state of South Carolina. Quote the South Carolina Department of Public Health on Tuesday reported 20 new cases in recent days, bringing the total related to an outbreak in northern South Carolina to 176. Nearly 300 people are in quarantine or isolation because they were exposed to measles at a school, church or other place. And again, the reason it's so contagious is that you can spread measles just through breathing the same air with someone. And you might not know you have measles for four days after getting infected. So you might be spreading it without even knowing that you have it yourself. And specifically in South Carolina, these outbreaks, they were tied to several elementary schools as well as several congregations. Quote 19 of the new cases were associated with exposures in known households and previously reported school exposures. Four resulted from an exposure at church. The source of one case is unknown and two are still being investigated. The South Carolina Department of Public Health reports There are currently 144 people in quarantine and seven in isolation. Based on the new cases, the Department of Public Health has identified public exposures at Sugar Ridge elementary and Boiling Springs elementary and began notifying potentially exposed students, faculty and staff on December 31. There are currently nine students in quarantine from these schools. Officials reported that Tabernacle of Salvation Church, Slavic Pentecostal Church of Spartanburg, Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, and Arc of Salvation Church are among the churches where exposures were reported. Four people, including adults and children, required hospitalization for complications of the disease. And then on top of South Carolina and the other states we mentioned, there have been a number of other measles related episodes. You had one traveler in Philadelphia International Airport who the local authorities there say could have exposed others to measles while he was traveling. Ohio recently saw an outbreak of measles as a whole, as did Washington State, as well as the states of New Jersey. You had Kansas City, you had Delaware, you had Missouri, you had Georgia, as well as New York. And again, I'll mention it one more time. The danger with measles is that once it starts spreading, it can spread incredibly fast. And so at the moment, there are basically two essential official explanations for why measles is making a resurgence, and they kind of tie in together. First is the post Covid dip in vaccination rates, which we already discussed. The second combines with the first is the influx of migrants coming in from countries that have measles problems to this very day. To that second point, let's look at what happened over in the city of Chicago. Chicago. They recently, roughly a year and a half ago, had one of the worst measles outbreaks here in the US and at the epicenter of the measles outbreak, it was located at a migrant facility housing people, mostly from Central and South America. The situation, as was described on the CDC's website in the weekly report, painted a pretty dire picture. Quote Since August of 2022, about 41,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago from the southern U.S. border, 88% of them from Venezuela, which has seen a decline in routine childhood vaccinations, including the measles vaccine. On February 22, 2024, about 12,000 people were staying in 27 temporary migrant shelters run by the city of Chicago on that day. The largest of them, the affected shelter called Shelter A in the report, was housing roughly 2100 people, with 500 or more staying in some rooms. In addition to congregate sleeping areas, the the migrants shared a dining area and bathrooms. And so just to pause here for a moment, you can already see how this is going to play out. You have a large group of unvaccinated people from South America being forced to congregate in a small confined space. What can go wrong? The first case of the outbreak was identified in a one year old boy living at the shelter. He developed a rash on February 26th and was hospitalized the next day for suspected measles. The boy had arrived in the United States more than five months earlier and had received one dose of the MMR vaccine five weeks before symptom onset. He had not traveled recently or had a known exposure to measles. Just to pause here, it is funny that they say he had not traveled recently, given the fact that that same article also said that he had recently come from South America like five months ago. Regardless, though, once this was identified, the measles outbreak began to spread exponentially. Quote By May 13, a total of 57 confirmed measles cases associated with residing in or having contact with persons from Shelter A had been reported. And again, going from one case to 57 cases still might not sound like a lot, but with measles you have to really look not at the raw numbers, but at the trajectory. And what I mean by that can actually really be illustrated by taking a look over at Western Europe, just like America West, Western Europe had pretty much eradicated measles. However, coinciding with millions of Third World migrants arriving on their shores, well, measles began to spring up in Western Europe once again. Quote In 2022, there were 941 reported cases of measles in the World Health Organization's European region over the first 10 months of last year. Referring to 2023. According to an alarming bulletin that the WHO issued in mid December, the there were more than 30,000. This is the kind of spike, a 3,000% increase that looks implausible in headlines. And then as the year rolled over, they wrote the following quote, but as the year drew to a close, the European measles outbreak kept growing through December. Case numbers in the region eventually reached over 42,000. And then this article actually breaks down just one small area in the uk There is also a vicious surge in Britain which, which may look plausibly to us as the canary in a coal mine there. In just one of England's nine regions, the West Midlands, 260 cases have been confirmed and dozens more suspected in a country which as a whole recorded just two cases as recently as 2021. And just to give you a bit of context here, the city of Birmingham is actually located in the West Midlands, and that city has seen one of the largest influxes of migrants out of all cities in the uk. And so it's this exponential growth potential of measles that makes having 800 cases in Texas or a few hundred cases in South Carolina or even just 57 cases in Chicago a big problem. But fear not, because in regards to Chicago, the CDC swooped in and they began a mass vaccination campaign which within the span of just several months got the MMR vaccine into 93% of the illegal migrants who who were within the Chicago shelter system. And the CDC claimed that that helped to end the outbreak. And in their sort of, what would you call it, the update that they posted on their website, they credited their vaccination campaign, but failed to mention the even the idea that so many millions of people streaming into the country could be one of the reasons that measles is popping up again. Here's what they wrote. Quote, ensuring high measles vaccination coverage during an outbreak can control measles spread and prevent wider transmission. Likewise, echoing that same sentiment, the New York Times recently put out an article saying that the cause of the uptick in measles cases here in the US Is not at all unfettered illegal immigration, but Rather, it's American kids not getting their shot. Here's an excerpt from their article quote between the 2019 and 2020 and 2021 and 2022 school years, the CDC found that the share of American kindergartners up to date on MMR vaccines fell from 95% to 94% and and then to 93%. These declines are not insignificant. 7% unvaccinated means perhaps 60,000 more vulnerable kindergartners than 5% unvaccinated. But in a country of more than 3 million kindergarteners, it also isn't a landscape shifting cliff drop. For 2021 to 2022, only nine states exhibited declines of 2% or larger. So there you have it. And to be fair, I will give you both sides of the argument. There is a real lack of solid evidence that's actually published in medical journals pointing to illegal immigration driving this increase in measles cases in the US Nationwide. I mean, if you use common sense, if you have a bunch of people coming from countries where measles is still a problem and their vaccination rates are lower than ours, they'll probably bring measles with them. And given the fact that outbreaks are happening in migrant shelters, it's kind of obvious. But there is the other side of the coin where those measles outbreaks will probably affect areas where there are more unvaccinated people for measles. So they kind of work together. And I also mentioned that as of right now, there is no clear peer reviewed study that really does connect the individual cases that we've been talking about to illegal migrants outside of migrant shelters. If you happen to actually know of any studies, please do link them in the comment section below. I'm sure, I know I'll appreciate it, but I'm sure anyone watching will as well. But there you have it. Probably in the next several years as more research happens. Maybe it'll come. Maybe not. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm pointing to something that doesn't exist. Maybe they're completely separate. Maybe it is the downtrend in vaccination rates that's leading to an uptick of measles completely separate from the illegal migration question. Who knows? But all I know is that at the moment there are measles outbreaks happening in the United States. If you want to know more about them I know I'll throw the links to my research notes. You'll be able to find them down in the description box below, right below those like and subscribe buttons. Both of which I hope you smash so this video can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. And also, as I mentioned at the top of the episode, if you want to check out that Charlie Kirk documentary we recently put together, sort of outlining the smear campaign against him, how it started, how it evolved, how it sort of got out of control and culminated in his assassination, I'll throw the link to that documentary. You'll be able to find it down in the description box below. Hope you check it out. And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. Stay informed and most importantly, stay free.