Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency in response to the spread of measles in rural areas of New York and neighboring Pennsylvania.
But what exactly does this mean?
Dr. James McDonald, state health commissioner, discussed the disaster declaration and what’s driving it, with All Things Considered host Sean Carlson.
Here is a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity:
So, can you just explain why a disaster emergency was declared? What does that mean?
What that means right now is that we now have additional authority granted to us by the governor. We have 110 cases of measles in New York State so far. That’s more than double what we had last year. The decree gives us new tools. One possible tool is for more healthcare professionals to be able to administer the vaccine: ambulance drivers, paramedics, pharmacists, community midwives, anyone trusted in the community. This helps us.
Another tool we have in the executive order is that we can do more testing, so nurses can fill standing orders and be tested for measles. This helps us find cases more quickly and it will help us identify more cases of measles. The third thing this does is we get adult vaccination information into our data registry so we know which communities have received the vaccine. This will help us better plan for where we are likely to see more outbreaks.
So cases have roughly doubled in about three weeks. Do we know where they come from? Are they from Pennsylvania?
This is rural New York, and what we’re actually seeing is there’s a lot of local dispersion in rural New York.
Now, keep in mind, what I mean by that is that this is the most contagious disease there is. So what you see is people go home, and then they pass it on to their families, and it spreads very quickly. If your family is not vaccinated, almost all of you will become infected. When I say it’s the most contagious disease, it doesn’t have to be that way. Measles is almost 100% preventable.
The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine – the one that’s been around since 1971 – is the only way to prevent measles, and it’s truly our best tool in the toolbox. We need to vaccinate more people as quickly as possible so that we can truly achieve community immunity. We have to come back to it.
One of the things I wanted to emphasize nationally is that what has happened over the last two years in the United States is not normal. Looking at 2025 data, we had almost 2,400 cases of measles in the United States. This year we have almost 3,700 cases and it’s climbing. This is not normal.
What you saw over the last 25 years is that we averaged less than 100 cases a year, and I don’t want us to be insensitive to that. As a country, we should not tolerate thousands of cases of vaccine-preventable diseases every year.
This then begs the question, given that this is something that we didn’t really need to think about too much until recently, can you just explain to us what the symptoms are and why measles is a dangerous disease?
One of the things about measles is that at first it looks like a cough, a runny nose, your eyes become watery, maybe a little red, and then you get a rash after a few days and you may have spots in your throat. Where it gets really bad is when people get pneumonia. People end up suffering from respiratory failure. They may end up on a ventilator. About 1 in 5 people with measles end up in hospital.
It is not a benign childhood illness. It is a serious illness. And one of the unusual things about the outbreak that we’re seeing now is that two out of three cases are in adults.
And one of the things that’s important to remember is that New York has very good vaccine requirements, but they’re school entry requirements, so if you’re an adult between the ages of 18 and 69, you really need to make sure you’ve had two measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines in your life. If you don’t know, contact your local health department or doctor’s office and get vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella. It’s that simple.
It must be said that Oswego, Seneca and Steuben counties are among those which have recorded the highest number of measles cases this year. They are not near the city. So should residents of New York and surrounding areas be worried?
If you have not received two vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella, you should be concerned because the vaccine does not respect borders. One of the things people need to remember about measles is that people are very contagious four days before they start showing symptoms. They don’t even know they’re going to have measles, but that’s when they’re very contagious, and they’re contagious four days after the start of their symptoms, which can be quite mild.
And that’s really the main point: you can’t say you’re exposed all the time.
Do we have a geographic sense of where these vaccination gaps are?
Western New York, Central New York, and Upstate New York are really the areas that concern me the most, and I think it’s important to understand that we don’t really have significant data on adult vaccination rates.
The way New York State law is constructed, we know everyone under the age of 18 is vaccinated. We don’t know about adults. One of the things the executive order gives me, though, is that I will now at least be able to know which adults are getting the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. This will help me. And we had some success.
You know, these are not always vaccine hesitant communities. Sometimes, some communities ignore vaccination. We have administered more than 1,200 measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. What we find though is after a long conversation, and it’s often about public health on the kitchen table. What I mean by that is local health departments are literally going to someone’s home, vaccinating them right at the kitchen table, and if that’s where people want to be met, we’re all on board. We’re happy to meet people where they are, very happy with the way local health departments are literally knocking on doors, offering the vaccine and answering questions.
Gn Health
