68 measles cases reported in Florida this year; count continues to rise By Cindy Krischer Goodman | cgoodman@sunsentinel.com | South Florida Sun Sentinel PUBLISHED: February 13, 2026 at 5:24 PM EST
Measles is now spreading in Florida, with 68 cases reported in the state already this year.
Florida Department of Health tracking shows that as of Feb. 7, the most recent data available, most cases in the state of the highly infectious disease are in Collier County, where, each day, more students and professors at Ave Maria University near Naples are showing symptoms.
Although the state’s tracking charts show 45 cases in college-aged students in the area, the university said in a statement this week that the total number of cases is nearer to 60.
In a statement on its website, the university said that its “ongoing priority remains the health, safety and well-being of every member of our campus community.” The school will continue to provide support through ongoing monitoring and quarantine protocols, free vaccinations, and “transparent communication,” the statement said.
Broward and Miami-Dade counties each have one reported case of the disease. Broward’s case involves a 10- to 14-year-old, while Miami-Dade’s involves a child under 4 years old.
Last week, the University of Florida said it was investigating two college classrooms where measles exposures may have occurred. The university said in a statement that health officials had already begun contacting people in the two classrooms. It did not say that measles had been detected in anyone connected to the university.
State records show two confirmed measles cases in college-age adults in Alachua County, where the university is located.
The vaccination status of those infected is not disclosed.
Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, has aggressively campaigned to eliminate vaccine requirements, even as the measles spreads in the U.S. Measles is a highly infectious virus that spreads when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes.
The disease often exhibits as a rash and can result in severe illness, including pneumonia and encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, which can lead to seizures, hallucinations, permanent brain damage, blindness, hearing loss and memory loss
CBS News has tracked more than 1,000 confirmed cases nationwide in 2026, about half the number of cases recorded in all of 2025.
In Florida last year, only seven measles cases were reported statewide.
Vaccination rates for measles among kindergarten-aged children in Florida have dropped from about 93% in 2019-20 to about 88.8% in 2024-25, according to the CDC. The rate is well below the national average of 93%.
In Broward, only 82.2% of 2024-25 kindergartners got their required vaccinations — the lowest level in 15 years. The public health goal is a vaccination rate of 95% — the level that makes it unlikely that a single infection will spark a disease cluster or outbreak.
While most people vaccinated against the disease will have lifelong protection, there are some instances when a booster dose is recommended. Anyone unsure whether they have immunity to measles can take a blood test (also called a titer test) to measure antibodies against measles.
And be sure to vote Republican. If the measles doesn’t get you, I.C.E. will. No, Ivermectin won’t help with this either.Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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I asked Grok: “how many children must die of measles before vaccination rates start going up again?”
Grok: “The question is rhetorical and grim, highlighting frustration with persistent vaccine hesitancy despite preventable deaths from measles—a disease that had been eliminated in the US since 2000 but has resurged due to declining childhood vaccination rates.Recent US data shows that vaccination coverage for MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) among kindergartners dropped from ~95% pre-pandemic (meeting the herd immunity threshold) to around 92-93% in recent school years, with even lower rates in some communities and states. This has fueled massive outbreaks:
Despite these deaths—particularly tragic child fatalities in places like Texas—national or broad vaccination rates have not shown clear, sustained upward rebounds in available data through early 2026.
Coverage remains below the 95% needed to reliably prevent transmission, and exemptions/non-medical refusals hit record highs in some areas.Historical and recent patterns (e.g., Samoa’s 2019 outbreak with 83 deaths leading to temporary sharp uptake, or smaller US clusters) suggest that visible, local tragedies can prompt temporary increases in vaccinations in affected communities through emergency campaigns and fear-driven response.
However, in the broader US context—with widespread misinformation, politicized vaccine skepticism, and uneven public health messaging—a few child deaths have not yet reversed the national downward trend.Modeling studies indicate that without reversing hesitancy (e.g., via better education, access, or policy), measles could become endemic again in the US within 20–25 years under current rates, with potentially thousands more deaths over decades if coverage falls further.
The bitter answer: apparently more than the handful we’ve seen so far, and possibly many more before widespread behavioral or policy change occurs at scale. Measles is extremely contagious and deadly for the unprotected (1–3 deaths per 1,000 cases in high-income settings, higher in vulnerable groups), yet preventable with a safe, effective vaccine.
The preventable nature of these losses is what makes the situation so frustrating. Increasing uptake requires addressing root causes like trust erosion, not just waiting for more tragedy.”
As your article points out too, the damage to health goes way beyond just the binary result of dying, to “pneumonia and encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, which can lead to seizures, hallucinations, permanent brain damage, blindness, hearing loss and memory loss.”
We’ll all be paying for that as a society for generations of lost productivity and dependency from children – who can’t make informed consent – by parents who should not have the right to withhold life-saving/enhancing vaccines from them.
And no, “freedom of choice” is NOT more important than preserving health, when the outcomes are so clear.
Parents should not have a choice in such clear-cut vaccines; we now have even more proof that vaccines work, and no other theory offers a rational explanation why major illnesses like measles have declined since they were introduced.
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