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LUBBOCK — When Kelly Johnson Pirtle was counting down the days to her due date last year, she pictured her future as a new mom. She thought of family visits, friends becoming her village, and a healthy child.
She never considered that she might have to shield her newborn son John from a once-eradicated disease.
“You want your kids to grow up in a world that’s healthy and moving forward,” Johnson said. “That’s not true during the first few months of his life. It makes me sad.”
Pirtle is one of many new parents in Lubbock who are growing more anxious as the measles outbreak, and vaccine skepticism, spreads. And Lubbock parents aren’t the only ones terrified of their young children contracting the contagious virus. From January to April 30, 7,107 babies have received a dose of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine early, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. It’s the state’s highest number in the last six years. It could be even higher since the data only includes children whose parents opted into submitting their information to the state.
The outbreak has ballooned to 722 cases in Texas since it began in January. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the measles outbreak is now the largest single outbreak since the U.S. declared the disease eliminated 25 years ago. Nine new cases were reported Friday, the lowest number since February. However, health officials can’t consider an outbreak over until there’s been a 42-day period without a new case.
As the outbreak spreads beyond West Texas, skepticism about the vaccine has intensified, including at a national level. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine skeptic, has spread misinformation about the vaccine. Earlier this month, Kennedy ordered federal health agencies to research new treatments for measles. Public health officials have said two doses of the MMR vaccine is the most effective way to prevent measles.
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However, a lot of time stands between those two doses and a sense of security for new parents. Doctors recommend that children get their first dose of the MMR vaccine when they are 12 months old. The timeline is shorter — just six months — for children in areas with an outbreak.
That is the case in Lubbock, about 87 miles northeast of Gaines County where the outbreak started and more than 400 cases have been confirmed. There have been 53 confirmed cases in Lubbock County. Lubbock, with a population of 267,000, is the largest city in the South Plains and serves as a medical hub for the region. Due to a dearth of rural hospitals and physicians, people from all over the region flock to Lubbock for health care.
It has left the city and its residents to figure out how to protect themselves when so much of the outbreak is out of their control. Some new parents in Lubbock have reverted to COVID-era precautions — limited contact with people outside the home and avoiding crowded places. On social media groups, women ask other moms how young babies infected with measles fared, and share details on vaccine clinics. Others share locations where cases have been reported for other parents to avoid.
And at this point, they aren’t just battling the outbreak. They are also battling the consequences of a growing distrust about the vaccine, including school and child care centers closing as cases pop up.
A 2024 KFF study found that exemption rates have gone up nationwide. The amount of kindergartners in the U.S. who were exempted from at least one required vaccine increased to 3.3%. Since 2018, the requests to the Texas Department of State Health Services for an exemption form have doubled from 45,900 to more than 93,000 in 2024.
In Lubbock County, 92% of kindergarteners reported being vaccinated against measles in the 2023-2024 school year, about 2 percentage points lower than the state average, according to latest state data.
Dr. Peter Hotez, Texas’ reigning infectious disease expert and physician, said the situation unraveling with vaccine hesitancy is part of the medical freedom movement.
“It’s a bit of phony propaganda,” Hotez said. “The only freedom being restricted is the freedom of parents who have to worry about bringing their infant to the store.”
For Pirtle and her husband, Adam, being cautious is the best way they can keep John safe until he gets the first dose. The parents found out their 3-month-old will need open heart surgery at the end of May. The surgery has a high success rate, but if John gets an infection before then, it would have to be postponed.
Even a recent trip to a friend’s baby celebration was cut short because the Pirtles feared the red patch on John’s cheek was measles; it turned out to be baby acne.
“Vaccines have always been a team effort,” Adam Pirtle said. “Like with herd immunity, we’re all part of the herd. Then all of a sudden, people decide not to play on the team. That hurts everyone.”
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Kyle Rable, the father of a 10-week-old in Lubbock, said he and his wife have also had to think carefully about where they take their son. They don’t take him grocery shopping or let strangers near him. They try to only take him out for outdoor events.
“Measles wasn’t on our radar. We were more worried about the cold and RSV,” Rable said. “We’re kind of counting down to when we can go get him that shot.”
Rable and his wife both work, so their son will start attending child care at the end of this month. They have been listening for any word on if the care center they want to go to has cases pop up.
“We can’t really not have him at day care,” Rable said. “We’re hoping everyone keeps up on their child’s vaccines to keep our child safe.”
Research has shown that measles is a potentially deadly infection where 20% of kids end up being hospitalized. The measles can cause pneumonia, brain inflammation, and permanent neurologic injury along with other long-term complications.
Hotez said babies can’t get the vaccine sooner than six months old because they have maternal antibodies that may affect the vaccine’s effectiveness.
He said the MMR vaccine is one of the safest, most effective vaccines. However, he doesn’t see the measles outbreak slowing down, as it has spread to low-vaccinated, conservative regions across the U.S. Great Plains.
“The worry I have is if this goes on for months and months, eventually we get to the point where we’ve lost our measles elimination status,” Hotez said.
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