U.S. Measles Cases Top 4,500 in 2026, More Than Double Last Year, as Florida Weighs Looser School Vaccine Rules

The United States has recorded 4,588 confirmed measles cases so far in 2026, more than double the total for all of 2025, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data current as of Oct. 22. Florida is among the 47 jurisdictions reporting cases, and its own count for the year, driven largely by an outbreak at a Collier County university, is the highest the state has seen in roughly a quarter century.

The national surge arrives as Florida health officials push to drop four vaccines from the state's school entry requirements and as the state's kindergarten vaccination rate sits well below the level public health experts say is needed to stop measles from spreading.

The national picture

The CDC has identified 43 new measles outbreaks in 2026, defined as three or more related cases. About 96% of this year's confirmed cases are outbreak-associated: 3,020 are tied to outbreaks that began in 2026 and 1,384 to outbreaks that began in 2025, according to the CDC figures reported by FOX 13 Tampa Bay. Another 18 cases were found among international visitors to the United States.

The 2025 total was about 2,289 confirmed cases, which at the time was the worst year since 1991. This year has now far surpassed it. Pennsylvania has become the epicenter: the state's Department of Health reported 1,286 confirmed cases across 42 counties as of Oct. 23, and as of Oct. 16 it had confirmed five measles-associated deaths there. Earlier in the year, large outbreaks in South Carolina and Utah drove the national count.

Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, meaning the virus was no longer spreading continuously within the country. Public health researchers have warned that the long chains of transmission seen in 2025 and 2026 put that status at risk, with a review by the Pan American Health Organization expected in November, according to reporting by the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, the country saw an estimated 3 million to 4 million cases a year. In a typical recent year, there have been fewer than 200. The CDC describes measles as highly contagious: the virus can linger in the air for about two hours, and about nine in 10 susceptible people who are exposed will become infected.

Where Florida stands

Florida's 2026 numbers climbed quickly in the first months of the year and then leveled off. The Florida Department of Health reported 150 suspected and confirmed cases from the start of the year through May 1, spread across 14 of the state's 67 counties, according to a Florida Phoenix analysis published by WLRN. By mid-June, the count had reached 154 cases in 16 counties, and a CBS News Miami report citing the Department of Health put the total at 155 later in the summer.

The most recent figure available to The Florida Press is 162 cases from 16 counties reported from Jan. 1 through Oct. 3, according to state health data compiled by the publication Outbreak News Today. That figure could not be independently confirmed against the Department of Health's dashboard on Tuesday. Even the late-May total was the most cases Florida had reported in a single year in at least 25 years.

State and federal counts differ because they measure different things. The state's database includes suspected and confirmed cases, while the CDC counts only confirmed cases and updates on a lag. As of May 7, for example, the CDC credited Florida with 135 confirmed cases, fourth highest in the country at the time.

Roughly 40% of Florida's cases this year have been in people ages 15 to 19, according to the state data analyzed by the Florida Phoenix, though people of all ages have been infected.

The Ave Maria University outbreak

Most of Florida's cases trace to Collier County, which had 107 by May. The outbreak began in late January at Ave Maria University, a private Catholic university east of Naples, where confirmed cases jumped from two to 11 over a single weekend in early February. It was the first measles outbreak in Collier County in about a decade, according to local news reports.

Health officials isolated students without documented immunity for 21 days, and 57 students were in quarantine as of mid-February. The Florida Department of Health in Collier County offered vaccinations and post-exposure treatment at its Naples and Immokalee locations. Nearly every case in the county was spread locally, with only three classified as imported. By spring, Collier had gone weeks without a new case, while scattered cases continued elsewhere in the state, including Hillsborough, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Florida's vaccination gap

About 89% of Florida kindergartners entering school in the 2024-25 school year were fully vaccinated, according to the WLRN report, short of the 95% coverage target that federal health officials set to keep measles under control. Nationally, kindergarten coverage for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine was 92.4% in 2025-26, according to the CDC.

Exemptions are also rising. Nearly 6% of Florida kindergartners, roughly 12,500 children, were exempt from one or more required vaccines in the 2025-26 school year, according to CDC data reported by Axios, well above the national rate of 4.2%. Nearly all of the Florida exemptions were nonmedical.

The fight over school vaccine requirements

Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and Gov. Ron DeSantis announced more than a year ago that they wanted to end all vaccine mandates in Florida. The MMR vaccine is not part of the change the Department of Health can make on its own. State law requires students to be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, polio, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus to attend school, with medical and religious exemptions, so removing those requirements would take an act of the Legislature.

The Legislature has not done so. A so-called medical freedom bill that would have expanded exemptions and required doctors to offer an alternate vaccine schedule passed the state Senate but failed in the House, and no legislator filed a bill in the 2026 sessions to remove all school vaccine requirements.

What the department can change by rule is a set of four additional requirements: hepatitis B, varicella (chickenpox), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. The department published a revised proposed rule on Aug. 24 to drop those four. On Sept. 30, it removed language that would have expanded exemptions to cover moral or ethical beliefs, leaving the current religious exemption in place. A public hearing in Lake Mary on Oct. 8 drew supporters who praised the plan and doctors who sharply criticized it.

Ladapo has said the change is about parental rights, not vaccine safety, describing the goal as "a public health system where parents are actively making decisions and choices about their health." Dr. Sarah Nosal, board president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, told the department that "weakening school entry requirements sends a message that these vaccines are no longer important."

On Friday, Oct. 16, the Florida Academy of Family Physicians, a Jacksonville family physician, a school nurse and a 70-year-old leukemia patient filed a challenge in the state Division of Administrative Hearings. They argue the department lacks legal authority to remove the requirements, offered no new scientific evidence, and missed procedural deadlines, alleging the department "did nothing to advance the rulemaking for 255 days." They are asking for a hearing and attorney fees.

What's next

The CDC updates its national measles count weekly, and the Pan American Health Organization's review of U.S. elimination status is expected in November. In Florida, the vaccine rule remains a proposal, not a final rule, and the administrative challenge could delay or block it. DeSantis, who leaves office in January 2027, has sought to complete his vaccine policy changes before then. Any change to the MMR requirement would still have to go through the Legislature, which next meets in regular session in 2027.

Health officials continue to recommend two doses of the MMR vaccine as the best protection against measles, and urge Floridians to check their vaccination status with a health care provider, especially before international or domestic travel to areas with active outbreaks.