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MEASLES OUTBREAK NEARS GRIM MILESTONE AS HUNDREDS QUARANTINE IN SOUTH
CAROLINA  
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Matt Novak
December 10, 2025
Gizmodo
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_ What happens when your country's public health system is run by
anti-vaccine activists? _

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The South Carolina Department of Public Health reported 27 new cases
of measles on Tuesday, all identified since last Friday, bringing the
total number of identified cases in the state this year to 114. There
are currently at least 254 people in quarantine in South Carolina,
though the problem isn’t just confined to one state.

The latest figures from the CDC, which haven’t been updated in over
a week and don’t include hundreds of recent cases, indicate there
have been 1,828 confirmed cases of measles in the U.S. this year as of
December 2 [[link removed]].
Three people have died from measles in 2025, two kids and one adult,
the first deaths from the disease in this country since 2015.

The U.S. officially eliminated measles as an endemic disease in the
year 2000, thanks to the widespread vaccination programs of the 20th
century. But America’s federal public health infrastructure saw a
hostile takeover by anti-vaccine activists in January, led by Health
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his so-called Make America Healthy
Again (MAHA) movement.

There have been 46 measles outbreaks identified in the U.S. in 2025,
and 87% of confirmed cases have been associated with outbreaks,
according to the CDC. An outbreak is defined as three or more cases of
the same disease linked to a common source. If the outbreaks continue
into January 2026, it will mark a year since they began in West Texas
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The U.S. will then officially lose its measles-free status
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The latest confirmed cases in South Carolina

The South Carolina Department of Public Health first identified an
outbreak in the state’s Upstate region on October 2, starting with
eight cases, mostly concentrated in Spartanburg County. That number
has grown to 111 cases
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in the area, which makes up the vast majority of the 114 cases in the
state.

The public exposure sites in South Carolina have included Inman
Intermediate School, where 43 students are currently in quarantine.
Students at the school, which has kids in 4th-6th grade, first went
into quarantine December 4 and will be able to return to class on
December 15 if they don’t become ill.

Sixteen of the new cases reported on Tuesday come from Way of Truth
Church in Inman, with eight of those cases coming from household
exposures to measles. One new case of measles came from “exposure in
a health care setting,” according to the South Carolina Department
of Public Health, though more details about that case were not
released. The agency encourages those who’ve been potentially
exposed to measles to notify their health care provider before coming
in so that proper arrangements can be made to protect others.

The age breakdown of South Carolina’s known measles cases in 2025
has included: Under 5 years old (20), 5-17 (75), 18+: 10. There have
been 6 minors whose ages haven’t been disclosed to public health
officials.

Importantly, 105 of the measles cases identified in South Carolina
have been from people who were unvaccinated. Three cases have been in
people who were partially vaccinated, receiving just one dose of the
recommended two-dose MMR shots. Just one person in the state’s
outbreak was fully vaccinated.

New cases in Utah and Arizona

The Utah Department of Health and Human Services has identified 115
measles cases this year, with 26 cases identified in the past three
weeks, according to the agency’s online dashboard
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A new case was reported Monday at the Bingham Kooper Kids childcare
facility, located inside Bingham High School in the city of South
Jordan. The person was unvaccinated, according to local news outlet
ABC4
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and it’s unclear where the person was initially infected and whether
they were a child or an adult.

There’s a long list of potential measles exposure locations
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in Utah, including two elementary schools, a junior high school, a
high school, two emergency rooms, a Walmart, and the Treehouse
Children’s Museum in Ogden.

Utah’s measles cases have been concentrated in the southwest region
of the state, where it shares a border with Arizona, a state that has
identified 23 of its own cases in the past two weeks. Arizona has seen
176 measles cases this year, with 97% of cases in unvaccinated
patients, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services
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Sixty-six percent of cases in Arizona have occurred in people under
the age of 18.

RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine nonsense

The U.S. government has been officially consumed by far-right
activists ever since President Donald Trump took power in January.
Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health
and Human Services, and he quickly worked to radically alter the
country’s vaccine policies.

To take just some recent examples, Kennedy has claimed without
evidence that peanut allergies are caused by vaccines
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and he’s installed anti-vaccine activist Kirk Milhoan
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as the chair of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel. The Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to remove a
recommendation that all children be vaccinated against hepatitis B
from birth
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Kennedy is grossly unqualified for the job and quite literally
doesn’t believe in germ theory. And as long as he and his MAHA
buddies are allowed to continue dismantling the country’s public
health infrastructure, we’re going to see more cases of measles, a
disease that can induce something called “immune amnesia.”

What’s immune amnesia? It’s when your immune system forgets how to
fight the pathogens it successfully fought off before
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_Matt Novak is a reporter at Gizmodo covering news and opinion, with a
little history thrown in for good measure. Novak started at Gizmodo in
2013 and has been writing about past visions of the future at
Paleofuture.com since 2007. Novak is fascinated with the history of
technology and got his start writing professionally for Smithsonian
magazine. Emails telling him to "stick to tech" can be sent to
[email protected]._

_Founded in 2002 as one of the internet’s very first tech news
blogs, Gizmodo is dedicated to fiercely independent reporting and
commentary on technology, science, and internet culture._

* vaccines
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* anti-vaxxers
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* measles
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* Robert F. Kennedy Jr
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* immune amnesia
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