Pennsylvania has reported a sixth measles-associated death — an unvaccinated resident of Jefferson County — as the state’s outbreak climbs to 1,467 cases, the largest in the nation and already past the 1,445 infections in the 1991 Philadelphia-area epidemic that killed nine children.
State health officials announced the death on Wednesday, saying only that the person was unvaccinated and lived in Jefferson County, which now has two measles deaths. The department declined to release additional details, citing privacy laws.
Six deaths in Pennsylvania, three on the CDC’s ledger
The state and federal counts of the dead do not match. The CDC has acknowledged just three measles deaths nationwide this year, while Pennsylvania had reported five, with a sixth under investigation, according to CIDRAP on October 30. By Wednesday, ABC News put the national toll at seven — six in Pennsylvania and one in New York, where a child died in Lewis County in the state’s first measles death in over 30 years.
At least 96% of measles cases in the U.S. this year have been among people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown, ABC reported. The CDC recommends two doses of the MMR vaccine; one dose is 93% effective and two doses 97%, the agency says.
Vaccines are going up; the outbreak isn’t over
The immunization push has been massive. Since August 1, Pennsylvania has administered 150,000 doses of the MMR vaccine, with more than 50,000 given in October alone, the, Guardian reported. More than 117,000 doses were administered across September and October, 6abc reported, and state health center staff have delivered more than 6,800 doses at 241 pop-up clinics since the outbreak began in late April, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found.
Still, one in five people infected in Pennsylvania became so sick they needed hospital care, and 283 have been hospitalized overall. Weekly case counts have dropped since early September — 238 cases in all of October, half the roughly 470 logged in each of August and September, the Inquirer reported — but Pennsylvania Health Secretary Debra Bogen said she would want the downward trend to continue for a couple more weeks
before calling the outbreak slowed. We’re seeing for the first time in many years one of those preventable diseases really presenting itself across our state,
she said.
Nationally, more than 4,800 measles cases have been confirmed this year, the highest since 1991, with the 12th straight week of triple-digit increases, CIDRAP reported. The U.S. will very likely lose the measles elimination status it gained in 2000, and the Pan American Health Organization is expected to decide on revoking it when it meets this month, the Association of Health Care Journalists noted.
Lancaster County sits at the epicenter
The outbreak has hit hardest in Lancaster County, home to the largest Amish population in the U.S., where more than a third of the state’s infections have arisen. Christ Stoltzfoos, who farms there, said measles was once common enough that it wasn’t that way 50 years ago in our community
— but attitudes have shifted as people fell ill. A lot of people now get the shots,
he said.
I guess you don’t get to change anybody’s mind. The people that changed their mind are the people who got really sick from it. They say now they would have gotten vaccinated. But the people that didn’t really get sick, they still say: ‘Oh, it’s not really that bad.’
Christ Stoltzfoos, Lancaster County farmer, to The Guardian
Dr. Anne-Marie Derrico, chief medical officer at the nonprofit Union Community Care, said the clinics’ vaccination efforts have made an impact, and some families are acting: Lauren Spence brought her 10-month-old son for an early first MMR dose and said simply, It’s scary.
One leading physician told The Independent: No one in the United States of America who is susceptible to the measles virus, either having not been vaccinated or not having previously had it, should feel safe from measles. No one.
The risk grows as vaccination rates fall. According to the CDC, 92.4% of U.S. kindergartners in 2025-26 received the required MMR shots, and Pennsylvania’s kindergarten rate fell to 93.2% last year, the, Los Angeles Times reported.
Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University, framed the stakes in the Post-Gazette: If this is a stress test, we are failing on all fronts.
Earlier coverage: New York Measles Death: First in 30 Years, Amid Falling Rates
