WA has already doubled its measles cases from 2025

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Hey, good morning, I'm Paige Browning, it's Tuesday, this is Seattle Now.

measles was declared eliminated in the United States in the year 2000, but last year case

numbers hit their highest in 34 years, and this year, the US has seen nearly 1,300 cases

well on track to beat even last year's numbers.

Because measles is so infectious, it really is the canary in the coal mine for all of the

other vaccine-preventable diseases that will eventually come back as well.

Coming up, we'll talk with University of Washington Medicine's Dr. Helen Chu about

what's happening here in Washington State and what's led vaccine rates to drop off.

But first, let's get you caught up.

Seattle might be the next city to ban construction of new detention centers.

We're watching today as the council votes on emergency legislation that would immediately

set a moratorium on new development, expansion or conversion of detention centers in Seattle.

Washington County, Tukwila, Renton and SeaTak have already limited where ice can expand

immigration lockups in their jurisdictions.

We've all been wondering where winter has been, and it looks like it's making a brief

but noticeable visit this week.

The National Weather Service is predicting that a system moving in tonight will bring a

lot of rain to lowland western Washington.

The mountains might even see a few feet of snow, not a few inches feet.

It knows for snowpack, but if you have cross state travel plan for Wednesday, you may

want to reconsider.

And Tukwila is getting a new tiny house village this week.

It'll have 40 tiny homes plus community spaces for unhoused residents, including families

with kids, couples, individuals and people with pets.

It's called Church by the Side of the Road Village and its run in partnership with the

Low Income Housing Institute and Church by the Side of the Road.

The mayor of Tukwila and the church's pastor will speak at the grand opening tomorrow

at 1.30.

We'll be back with more headlines on tonight's episode of Seattle Now.

First it shows up as a high fever, and then the measles rash.

Measles cases are on the rise.

Washington State has had 26 confirmed cases this year so far that's double all the cases

of 2025.

To find out what's happening, we're joined by Dr. Helen Chu, infectious disease specialist

with UW Medicine.

Hey, doctor, thanks for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me.

To start with, from what you can tell, what is behind the measles spike in Washington

State this year?

So there are a couple of factors that are driving increases in the numbers of cases of measles.

The most recent outbreak occurred because of an introduction from South Carolina that

then spread locally.

But overall, the theme is lower vaccination uptake, particularly in young children.

And what we're seeing is that as the measles vaccine numbers go down, the levels of

herd immunity that we need to be able to protect against transmission, we're just not achieving

that anymore.

And so we're going to see more and more outbreaks.

And just a really brief reminder for us all about what herd immunity would look like

in this case or what it is.

Your herd immunity is essentially achieving a certain number of people who are vaccinated

to keep measles virus from transmitting in the community.

And for measles, which is a highly infectious virus, that number is 95%.

And what we're seeing in Washington State is that those numbers are starting to get lower

and lower, particularly in young children as they enter school.

Dr. you mentioned a link to an outbreak in South Carolina all the way across the country.

And I understand that some of these cases are linked to specific outbreaks.

How do those typically happen?

The first thing to know is that the measles cases that have occurred have mostly been

in children and in people who are unvaccinated.

Okay.

And so what happens is that there are multiple ongoing outbreaks in different parts of

the country and people travel back and forth.

In this particular case, what happened was somebody traveled over the holidays and introduced

it to Washington State and then it spread locally.

And now I'm wondering, we have a lot of travel within the Northwest, especially, and I'm

thinking about Oregon, where there's even more measles cases right now.

Is that of concern to you being so close in proximity?

Yes.

I mean, certainly there's just a high number of children who are unvaccinated.

And in certain counties, particularly those bordering Oregon and those bordering Idaho,

those numbers are even lower.

So the chances of a virus transmitting in those places are higher.

So for example, in Pacific County, the vaccine rates for young children are 56 percent.

You need 95 percent to achieve herd immunity.

Pacific County is currently 56 percent.

So that gives you an idea of it's not just overall across the country or even in the state

as a whole, but there are certainly certain geographic pockets where there's just going

to be very high numbers of unvaccinated individuals and very high rates of transmission.

Can you just remind us what happens when you get measles?

Yeah.

So measles is actually a very serious infection.

It takes about a week before you start having symptoms.

And when it starts, you have fever, a runny nose, redness of your eyes.

Sometimes you have the spots in your mouth.

And then a couple of days later, you get the rash and it's as though a paint bucket was

dumped on your head.

So it starts from the top and goes down.

Most children recover from measles, but then many do not.

So some of the early consequences of having a measles infection include having pneumonia

or infection of your brain.

Oh my goodness.

One thing we really worry about is that sometimes months to years later, you can develop long-term

neurologic consequences of a measles infection.

So up to months to years later, you can still get very sick from that measles infection

you had.

It's an interesting timeline.

You might not know that you were exposed or infected until seven to ten days or something

like that later.

And then if you contract it and have a bad case, you could be dealing with it for years.

You can.

I mean, one of the other really unfortunate things about measles infection is that it really

dampens your immune response.

So it also makes your body not able to respond to other infections over the course of the

next year.

And we know that this is the case from places where measles is much more common where children

are more likely to die in the year after their measles infection.

Like you said, you might then contract pneumonia, which can be very dangerous.

Dr. Chu Washington's Department of Health still urges people to get vaccinated with the

MMR vaccine, covering measles, mumps, and rubella, remind us what's the schedule for children

recommended by West Coast states, Washington included.

Children should receive two doses of their MMR vaccine.

The first dose is between one year and fifteen months.

And the second dose is at four to six years before starting kindergarten.

Okay.

So by the time you go into kindergarten, you're fully inoculated.

So if there is an outbreak, how should we be looking at our vaccination status?

So if there is an outbreak, it's important to make sure that you are up to date on your

vaccines.

And that's something that you can check with your doctor.

For adults, most adults are going to be immune, either from natural infection if they were

born before 1957, or from their doses of vaccine that they received.

What if I'm not sure if I got the vaccine, and it's not in my doctor's chart?

So there's a couple of ways to figure that out.

The first is you can look at your Washington State Immune Registry data, and that's something

that's just accessible on the internet.

And the other way you can check to see if your immune is to get a blood draw to see what

your measles titers are.

Okay.

But if I'm an adult or a child who's gotten my full vaccination schedule, I got the whole

package, I don't need to go get a boost or something.

I should be protected for life.

That's correct.

In most cases, if you've gotten your full vaccine series, you should be protected for

life.

Things are ever evolving right now because of the ongoing outbreaks.

So I would suggest that if you are living in a place that has an active outbreak like

Snohomish County, then that is a time when you should consider talking to your doctor

and figuring out if you are actually immune or whether or not you need another dose.

Okay.

Where it gets really interesting is that Washington State is recommending a scientifically

backed vaccine schedule.

The federal government is not.

Washington State is no longer relying on federal guidance when it comes to vaccine timelines

for kids.

Instead, we're part of this West Coast alliance that relies on guidance from groups like the

American Academy of Pediatrics.

I know you are all too familiar with this, Dr. Chu, but I'm wondering, since we're splintering

off from the rest of the nation, is this putting Washington State in a better position

on vaccines?

Are we seeing any evidence of that yet?

I would say that in general, we are not splintering off from the rest of the country that

most of the states are actually choosing to adopt the American Academy of Pediatrics

Childhood Immunization Schedule.

So in that case, we are very much in line with a lot of other states.

What is happening, though, nationally, is that we're seeing vaccine confidence go down.

And with that decrease in vaccine confidence, we are seeing vaccine uptake, particularly

in young children go down year after year.

This has shown up for both the routine childhood vaccines as well as the seasonal vaccines.

So the overall, I do think that we are going to be at risk for more outbreaks of vaccine

preventable diseases.

From your perspective, what is the solution to increasing vaccination and getting up to

herd immunity?

Oh, that's a great question.

Do you have the million dollar answer here?

Well, what I can tell you is that most people trust their healthcare provider.

They trust their doctor to give them the best advice.

So as a parent, the best person to turn to is your pediatrician and to get advice from

them, and they will give you the right answer, and you should do what they say.

Is there anything else you want listeners to know about measles or current outbreaks?

I think it's worth emphasizing that all of the cases in Washington state thus far have

occurred in unvaccinated individuals, all of the cases.

So all of the cases for which vaccine status is known, there were two cases where we don't

have a known vaccine status.

So for all of the cases where we know the vaccine status, all of those people were unvaccinated.

So it is a disease of unvaccinated individuals.

Dr. Helen Chu is an infectious disease specialist with University of Washington Medicine.

Thank you so much as always for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks so much for listening to Seattle Now, and thanks a bunch to our generous donors

who give financial support to the show, you can join them and give a gift at the link

in the show notes, and it always helps us when you rate or review the show or leave a comment

on the episode.

Today's episode was produced by Andy Hurst.

It was edited by Caroline Chamberlain Gomez.

Our production team also includes Bon Jones, Brooklyn Jamerson Flowers, and Patricia Murphy.

Greg Kramer does our theme music, Seattle Now, and KUW Public Radio are members of the NPR

network.

I'm Paige Browning, see you tonight for evening headlines.

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