Utah has spent the past year fighting measles outbreaks, and the disease is still transmitting across the state with no clear end in sight. More than 680 people have gotten sick since Utah’s first outbreak began on June 20, 2025, exposing how quickly a vaccine-preventable disease can move through undervaccinated communities when public health systems are left chasing spread after the fact.
Who Pays When Containment Fails
The worst spread has been in the southwestern part of the state, where 265 people have fallen ill since last summer. Overall, measles infections hit 22 of Utah’s 29 counties. In the state’s rural northeast, Daggett, Duchesne and Uintah counties, collectively dubbed the “tricounty” health region, have seen the second-largest decline in childhood vaccination rates in the state. More than 16% of the region’s kindergarteners were missing their measles vaccines in the last school year, according to state data. Statewide, 12.8% were missing their vaccine, far short of the 95% vaccination rate needed to prevent measles outbreaks.
Measles popped up in healthcare settings, big-box stores and restaurants, and youth sporting events. In February, an exposure at a state high school wrestling championship sparked at least 46 cases among attendees. The virus also spread in school and later within households after people who got sick at the youth wrestling tournament carried it into the TriCounty Health Department’s area.
What the Officials Call Success
The TriCounty Health Department logged 74 cases of measles this spring, and local and state health officials consider that response a success. Health officials focused efforts on mitigating the inevitable spread. Unvaccinated students were excluded from in-person school and people who were sick were told to isolate themselves. Their appeal to care for one’s neighbors led to more people coming in to get vaccinated, officials said.
TriCounty’s infectious disease specialist Cyndie Mattinson recalled a parent who told a school nurse she didn’t want to talk to the health department because “she was worried that we would be angry with her and be judgmental because her children were unvaccinated.” The nurse vouched for the health department staff, and told the mom to let her know if she felt judged. Mattinson ultimately had a great conversation with the mother. “The perceptions were changed that we weren’t out there to police, we were there to be a help and a resource to the community,” Mattinson said.
That language sits beside the actual machinery of control: unvaccinated students kept out of in-person school, sick people told to isolate, and a public health system trying to manage spread after it has already entered homes, schools and workplaces.
The State’s Fragile Grip
State epidemiologist Leisha Nolen said there is little opportunity to rest, even though Utah’s spread has slowed in recent weeks. She said she is worried the start of school and arrival of colder weather in the fall will cause measles to surge again. “It’s still here, it’s still transmitting,” she said. “We just need those few cases to hit the wrong community and it could flare up really big again.”
The measles vaccine is safe and 97% protective after two doses, but Utah remains well below the level needed to stop outbreaks. The state’s lengthy battle with measles will likely affect whether the U.S. can keep its measles-free designation. Public health officials consider measles to be eliminated from a country when it shows it stopped continuous spread within local communities for at least a year.
The national measles case count was 2,104 as of June 18, nearly surpassing last year’s record total. Utah has fought measles for a year, but it’s not clear if the earliest clusters are connected with the major outbreak on the Utah-Arizona state line, which was detected in August, Nolen said. Since then, most of the state’s measles cases have come from within Utah, not from other parts of the country.
Reform, Lobbying, and the Limits of the System
In Utah, doctors continue to reassure scared patients and lobby for better public health policy. Dr. Ellie Brownstein, president-elect of the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a pediatrician in Salt Lake City, spent the height of the outbreak opposing a bill that would have made school vaccine waivers easier to get. It failed, but she said there hasn’t been a clear cultural reckoning over measles’ resurgence.
“I don’t know that we get it to end,” Brownstein said. “I don’t know that we’re going to get this genie back in the box because there’s enough people out there to spread it.”
International health experts will gather in November to determine if the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles elimination status. Canada lost its status last year after ongoing outbreaks. In Utah, the outbreak keeps moving through communities while officials, doctors and institutions try to manage the damage after the fact.