This last week Idaho bumped up to three measles cases. The latest in Bonner County has arrived alongside others in Kootenai and Bonneville counties; the first two thought to be part of a local spread and the latter “imported.”
Three is hardly an epidemic, of course – so far. But you can expect there will be more. And that will have implications for health and, inevitably these days, politics.
These Idaho cases are a small part of the first major measles outbreak nationally in decades. There may be reasons more social and political than medical that it is resurfacing now.
That’s not just speculation. The Johns Hopkins health tracker (one not hobbled by federal budget cuts, at least not yet) shows that with one outlier exception in 2019, total measles cases in the United States never reached 400 cases for any full year in this century up to 2025, but 1,388 have been reported just so far this year. The heaviest spread has been reported in Texas, but many other states have been reporting significant numbers of them, including Montana, California, Kansas and New Mexico.
Johns Hopkins concluded, “To date in 2025 measles outbreaks have been reported in multiple states, raising concerns about continued spread, increases in hospitalizations and deaths, and loss of measles elimination status, highlighting the importance of measles vaccination and rapid detection and reporting of suspected and confirmed measles cases.”
So far as health officials have been able to determine, the three Idaho cases are unrelated – which could be a bigger problem than if they were connected.
Dr. Christine Hahn, state epidemiologist, said that “Without any link between these two confirmed cases in north Idaho or travel outside of their communities, it’s reasonable to suspect that there is more measles circulating. As we’ve seen with other states around the nation, cases can begin to multiply quickly.”
Measles, which is developed from a virus which is highly contagious, has a wide range of impacts, some of them more annoying than hazardous, but ranging to life-threatening. Among young children who contract it, an estimated 21% will need a stay at a hospital.
We haven’t heard a lot about measles for a long time, because for quite awhile it seemed part of history. Measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, and vaccination rates in the United States and many other countries were overwhelming – and measles was nearly stamped out. Those vaccination rates were high enough to create herd immunity.
Idaho, however, is among the states that has thrown out a welcome mat to the measles virus, among other bad bugs.
That follows not so much a single action or piece of legislation, as the overall political and cultural atmosphere. Item: Idaho is first in the country for percentage of “kindergartners with medical or nonmedical exemptions from one or more vaccination.” Item: A new state law limits vaccination mandates in many places (which would have been more if the legislature hadn’t watered it down a little late in the process). Item: The still-active rebellion against vaccinating people against Covid-19. And much more; if you live in Idaho you can compile your own list.
And then there’s the in-migration of people from states where efforts to combat Covid-19 were stronger; as one immigrant from California put it (reflecting the view of many), “I came here in search of medical freedom.”
Here’s another way to put it: A growing number of people in Idaho want little to do with steps to protect themselves and the people around them from contagious and sometimes deadly diseases, and see public safety as something to be disregarded – or resisted.
Measles has a good chance of being the next battleground in this area. Watch for it coming to a community near you.
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