National, Regional and Local News

[Owendonovan]

"But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots."

AKA child abuse.

[ponchi101]

"But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots."

AKA child abuse.

Or evolution at work.

[ti-amie]

Trump takeover sees Kennedy Center suffer ticket sale collapse, says report
Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s leadership upon his return to the Oval Office and put MAGA loyalist in charge of the famed institution

Graeme Massie
in Los Angeles
Sunday 23 February 2025 16:07 GMT

Donald Trump’s move to take control of Washington D.C’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has led to a staggering 50 percent drop in ticket sales, according to a report.

Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s leadership upon his return to the Oval Office and put MAGA loyalist Richard Grenell in charge of the famed institution.

In the week that followed the decision ticket sales halved, Kennedy Center staff members told The Washington Post anonymously for fear of reprisals.

And it is not just audience members who have deserted the Kennedy Center.

Actress and comedian Issa Rae was the first major artist to announce that she was canceling her show there.

“Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue,” she said in an Instagram story on February 13, with tickers being refunded.

Canadian mystery writer Louise Penny also pulled out of her scheduled appearance.

“In DC, but in the wake of Trump taking over, I have pulled out. It was, of course, going to be a career highlight. But there are things far more important than that,” she wrote on Facebook.

The ticket sales slump comes after Trump’s White House press secretary bragged that, "The Kennedy Center learned the hard way that if you go woke, you will go broke.”

She added: “President Trump and the members of his newly-appointed board are devoted to rebuilding the Kennedy Center into a thriving and highly respected institution where all Americans, and visitors from around the world, can enjoy the arts with respect to America’s great history and traditions.”

Grenell himself told Fox News Digital that Trump’s leadership would see a “Golden Age of the Arts” in the nation’s capital and “sell tickets.”

“The Kennedy Center has zero cash on hand and zero dollars in reserves - while taking tens of millions of dollars in public funds. We must have programs that sell tickets. We can’t afford to pay for content that doesn’t at least pay for itself right now. I wish we didn’t have to consider the costs of production, but we do.

“The good news is that there are plenty of shows that are very popular, and therefore the ticket sales will pay for themselves.”

The Kennedy Center was first conceived in the late 1950s, during the administration of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, who backed a bill from the Democratic-led Congress calling for a “National Culture Center.”

In the early 1960s, Democrat President John F. Kennedy launched a fundraising initiative, and his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed into law a 1964 bill renaming the project the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Kennedy had been assassinated the year before.

Construction began in 1965 and the center formally opened six years later, with a premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 03156.html

[ti-amie]

https://youtube.com/@streamtimelive

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

OPM memo suggests agencies “maximally reduce the use of outside consultants and contractors”
https://thehill.com/homenews/5165117-fe ... ffs-plans/

“A Wednesday memo from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) directs agencies across government to turn over plans for widespread layoffs of federal employees by March 13.

The memo also suggests agencies “close and/or consolidate regional field offices to the extent consistent with efficient service delivery; and maximally reduce the use of outside consultants and contractors.”

That last sentence…

[Owendonovan]

I'd start with Elmos contracts.

[ti-amie]

FAA targeting Verizon contract in favor of Musk’s Starlink, sources say
Turning the $2.4 billion project over to Musk’s company would be a major test of conflict-of-interest rules in government contracting.

February 26, 2025 at 6:36 p.m. EST Yesterday at 6:36 p.m. EST


A screen shows air traffic activity over the United States on Nov. 16, 2023, at a Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Control command center. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

By Ian Duncan, Hannah Natanson, Lori Aratani and Faiz Siddiqui

The Federal Aviation Administration is close to canceling a $2.4 billion contract to overhaul a communications system that serves as the backbone of the nation’s air traffic control system and awarding the work to Elon Musk’s Starlink, according to two people briefed on the plans.

The move to cancel a major contract in favor of a venture led by Musk — who is leading President Donald Trump’s disruptive overhaul of the federal government through the U.S. DOGE Service — would represent a significant test of protections against conflicts of interest in government projects. It would be an especially extraordinary step for the typically cautious FAA, whose systems are vital to the safety of millions of air travelers every day.

The existing contract was awarded to Verizon in 2023, with the aim of upgrading a platform that different air traffic control facilities and FAA offices use to communicate with one another.

Musk has personally taken aim at Verizon on his social media platform X in recent days, saying on Monday: “The Verizon system is not working and so is putting air travelers at serious risk.”

Verizon did not respond to a request for comment. Joseph Russo, a Verizon executive vice president, said at an event hosted by Barclays Bank on Tuesday that Starlink’s efforts at FAA might be complementary to Verizon’s. Verizon was offering the “reliability and performance” that the FAA needed, and its system was expected to be operational soon, Russo said.

The FAA said in a statement Wednesday that “no decisions have been made” about the Verizon project.

A team of employees from SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, has been working inside the FAA in recent days, charged by the Trump administration with helping modernize the agency’s aging technology. Ted Malaska, one of them, shared a picture on X on Thursday saying he was excited to be working with the FAA, and thanking Musk and Trump for their “vision and focus on safety.”

“I challenge anyone to question the honesty and my technical integrity on this matter,” Malaska posted Wednesday. “I am working without biases for the safety of people that fly.”

Several of the SpaceX employees now have FAA email addresses, according to two people who have seen the addresses, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. FAA regulates SpaceX and has alleged that the company has violated safety rules relating to its rocket launches.

In a statement Monday, the FAA said it was testing Starlink systems at facilities in New Jersey and Alaska, in hopes of providing more reliable connectivity in remote locations. Elements of the FAA’s deliberations were previously reported by the Associated Press and Bloomberg News.

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said on Fox News this week that the government had been too slow to modernize its technology and that the new administration was ready to move quickly.

“We’re going to look at a year, year-and-a-half time frame and do massive upgrades, improve the systems, help air traffic controllers, keep our skies safer,” Duffy said.

But the Starlink plan adds to Musk’s existing conflicts of interest at the FAA relating to SpaceX, according to John P. Pelissero, the director of an ethics center at Santa Clara University.

Pelissero said it appears that “because of Musk’s current position in DOGE and his closeness to Trump he and his company are getting an advantage and getting a contract.”

“Who’s looking out for the public interest here when you get the person who’s cutting budgets and personnel from the FAA, suddenly trying to benefit from still another government contract?” Pelissero said.

The Transportation Department, DOGE and SpaceX did not respond to questions on how the process of changing contractors has been handled and whether potential conflicts of interest have been reviewed. Trump has said Musk will not be permitted to participate in decisions that pose a conflict of interest.

Verizon was tapped in 2023 to build a system called the FAA Enterprise Network Services Program or FENS, replacing a system that dates to 2002. The contract had a 15-year lifespan, and the system is intended to connect some 4,600 sites, according to the FAA.

The agency was scheduled to make a final decision on whether to start paying Verizon for the contract next month, said one of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Instead, Musk’s team determined the job should go to Starlink, the person said. But the process for unwinding a contract and awarding it to another company is lengthy and has not been followed in this case so far, the person said.

Several senior FAA officials have refused to sign paperwork authorizing the switch, according to the person, who has been briefed on the internal deliberations and resulting fallout, so Musk’s team is now seeking help from the acting administrator of the agency, Trump appointee Chris Rocheleau, and Duffy.

Outside reviews of the FAA’s technology have repeatedly concluded in recent years that it is woefully out of date and that the agency is too slow to make upgrades. A 2023 safety review pointed to technological problems as one factor that was creating “risk” in the aviation system, a problem the Verizon contract is supposed to help solve.

Jessica Tillipman, the associate dean for government and procurement law studies at George Washington University School of Law, said terminating a contract can be expensive, time consuming and could lead to litigation.

“When the government terminates a contract it’s not like it shuts off the spigot,” she said. “It’s expensive to wind down a contract. It’s very expensive and it’s complicated.”

She said negotiating a settlement can take a year.

In awarding a new contract, agencies generally must comply with rules for competitive bidding. There are exceptions, including urgency, she said.

“But the question is, how is it so urgent when you already had a contractor dealing with it?,” said Tillipman, adding that there are many different guardrails within the federal acquisition system to make sure things are fair, transparent and efficient.

“However, in the last few weeks she said many of these guardrails have been tested, which will likely lead to litigation,” she said.

Washington Post researcher Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.

correction
A previous version of this story mentioned the federal Competition in Contracting Act in relation to the Federal Aviation Administration procurement. The FAA is exempt from the act. The story has been corrected.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... a-verizon/

From a comment:

Will be interesting to see the SpaceX paradigm of use failure to achieve success applied to air traffic control.

[ti-amie]

Judge blocks Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers
A federal judge ruled that the terminations at agencies including the Department of Defense were probably illegal.

February 27, 2025 at 6:23 p.m. ESTToday at 6:23 p.m. EST

By Salvador Rizzo
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind directives that initiated the mass firing of probationary workers across the government, ruling that the terminations were probably illegal, as a group of labor unions argued in court.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered OPM to rescind its previous directives to more than two dozen agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Science Foundation and others identified in a lawsuit. The ruling — a temporary restraint on the government that will be revisited in the coming weeks — is one of the biggest roadblocks so far to President Donald Trump’s effort to slash the federal workforce.

“Congress has given the authority to hire and fire to the agencies themselves. The Department of Defense, for example, has statutory authority to hire and fire,” Alsup said from the bench as he handed down the ruling Thursday evening in federal court in San Francisco. “The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees at another agency. They can hire and fire their own employees.”

An OPM spokesperson said the agency had no immediate comment.

A group of union plaintiffs and advocacy organizations led by the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents about 800,000 federal workers nationwide, argued in legal filings that OPM broke the law when it ordered government agencies in mid-February to fire all probationary employees, defined as those who are in the first or second year on the job.

The United States employs about 200,000 such workers, which represents about 10 percent of its civilian federal workforce. Tens of thousands already have been dismissed, often with a template email provided by OPM that falsely cites performance reasons for the terminations, the unions said. Trump and other administration officials have said the cuts are meant to reduce the size of the federal workforce.

“OPM, the federal agency charged with implementing this nation’s employment laws, in one fell swoop has perpetrated one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country, telling tens of thousands of workers that they are being fired for performance reasons, when they most certainly were not,” attorneys for the unions said in a court filing.

Many of the employees “had received excellent performance reviews” and were terminated without input from their supervisors, the unions said. Swept up in the cuts were vital employees in charge of forest-fire prevention in California, as well as Federal Aviation Administration workers in airports across the country, staff members providing support services to veterans and researchers at the National Science Foundation.

“OPM has no legal authority to order the termination of any employee at a federal agency, let alone all federal employees nationwide,” an attorney for the plaintiffs, Danielle Leonard, argued at the hearing Thursday.

In response to the lawsuit, the Justice Department and the acting OPM director, Charles Ezell, said the unions lacked legal standing to challenge the firings in court and should take their claims to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a panel of presidential appointees, or the Merit Systems Protection Board. The latter board halted the terminations of six probationary employees in a ruling issued this week, which could have wider implications for the larger pool of fired probationary employees.

The Justice Department argued that the president has “inherent constitutional authority” to decide “how best to manage the Executive Branch, including whom to hire and remove, what conditions to place on continued employment, and what processes to employ in making these determinations.” Ezell said in a court filing that “only the highest-performing probationers in mission-critical areas demonstrate the necessary fitness or qualifications for continued employment.”

An assistant U.S. attorney, Kelsey Helland, argued Thursday that some agencies, including the Justice Department, simply ignored OPM’s communications about firing probationary employees. He said the unions and advocacy groups were “conflating a request from OPM with an order from OPM.”

The Trump administration attorneys also claimed in court papers that OPM had not ordered federal agencies to fire specific employees and did not create a “mass termination program” but rather a “focused review” process. Alsup was skeptical of that argument; multiple agency officials — from the Defense and Agriculture departments, the IRS, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Science Foundation — have said OPM ordered them to fire probationary workers, according to court records.

“How could so much of the workforce be amputated, suddenly, overnight? It’s so irregular and so widespread and so aberrant in the history of our country. How could this all happen with each agency deciding on its own to do something so aberrational?” said Alsup, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1999. “I don’t believe it.”

The unions said in a legal firing that “[n]o federal agency had announced any terminations of probationary employees in the positions each agency carefully vetted, authorized, and hired employees to perform, prior to OPM’s order.” They added that OPM barely gave officials a chance to justify keeping probationary workers: “OPM required agencies to adhere to a 200-character limit in any explanation provided as to why any individual employee should be retained by the agency.”

A federal judge in D.C. last week denied a similar request for a temporary restraining order filed by government worker unions, ruling that he did not have legal jurisdiction to hear the case and that the unions should take their challenge to the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Trump fired the chairwoman of that agency before her term was set to expire in July. In the meantime, the authority consists of one Republican appointee and one Democratic appointee.

“Probationary employees are the lifeblood of these agencies,” the judge said Thursday. “They come in at the low level and work their way up, and that’s how we renew ourselves and reinvent ourselves.”

Emily Davies contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va ... s-lawsuit/

[ti-amie]

Good news: Ruling on unions case against OPM (firing of probationary employees)
-Extraordinary hearing. Good job by both sides. Hot off the press:

Judge rules from the bench. Quotes follow:

-OPM cannot order agencies to hire or fire probationaries. In no universe can they do that.

-Court is entering limited relief. Believes plaintiffs are likely to win on the merits.

-Court believes agencies were instructed by OPM to fire terminated employees because there's so much evidence from agency statements, testimony in congress

-How could so much of the workforce be amputated suddenly overinight? It's so irregular widespread and aberrant in the history of our country. How could that all happen with each agency deciding on its own to do that? I believe they were ordered to do so by OPM. That's where the evidence points.

-Compliments the government lawyer because he has a hard case to make and he's done an admirable job.

-But all the evidence points against you. All the evidence points there was an order to terminate these probationaries.

-This is ultra vires--beyond congressional authority.

-Believes employee unions have to channel their claims. But when congress set up MSPB it was thinking of individual claims. Is an agency action this widespread something that needs to be channeled to MSPB? Plaintiffs lose on jurisdiction as to the unions. Wonders why union didn't make that claim.

-Organizational (non-Union) plaintiffs win the day though. Organizational plaintiffs are hurt by these terminations. Not layoffs, but terminations. It's not true that these were layoffs. These are terminations. That's just not right on our country, that we would run our agency with lies and stain somebody's record like that. Probationary employees are the lifeblood of our government. That's how we renew ourselves in the government. They are the bright minds that lift up our government.

-In terms of relief. I might say it better in writing. Feb 14 email and Jan 20 communication and all efforts by OPM in support thereof, lis illegal should be stopped and rescinded. ultra vires and violation of APA (should've gone through rule making process). Limited to agencies affected by organizational plaintiffs.

-Agencies affected: NPS. VA. BLM, NSF, SBA

-Wants an evidentiary hearing. Judge says that Charles EZELL FROM OPM Will be forced to testify at the evidentiary hearing! Hearing will take place in 14 days at 8 am.

Written ruling to follow!!!

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69 ... der_by=asc

[ti-amie]

Under DOGE, America’s VA Finds New Government ‘Waste’ Target: Chemotherapy for Vets
Musk's organization is truly having a divine impact on the federal government.
By Lucas Ropek Published February 27, 2025 |

A new report shows that, as part of the Trump administration’s DOGE mission, the Department of Veteran Affairs tried to cancel contracts that would have supported chemotherapy and other cancer treatment for veterans.

The Associated Press notes that, after being confronted over the planned cuts by lawmakers and veteran services organization, the VA announced it would temporarily halt the planned cuts.

“We’re reviewing VA’s various contracts, and we will be canceling many focusing on non-mission critical things like PowerPoint slides, executive support, and coaching,” a VA spokesperson told Gizmodo. “Our contract review is ongoing and no final decisions have been made.” He added: “We will not be eliminating any benefits or services to Veterans or VA beneficiaries, and there will be no negative impact to VA health care, benefits or beneficiaries. We are always going to take care of Veterans at VA. Period.”

When asked directly about DOGE’s role in the identified cuts, the VA did not respond. The Washington Post had previously reported that the agency targeted the contracts “as part of a government-wide effort to cut costs, led by billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service.”

Multiple news outlets have reported on the kinds of contracts that the VA was attempting to cut, including, as the AP notes, the following:

In an internal VA email sent Tuesday and seen by the AP, a VA contracting official said DOGE targeted contracts broadly categorized as “consulting” but they included ones that if terminated would halt chemotherapy and imaging services.

Other contracts that were apparently targeted for termination included those that would help properly calibrate radiation detection equipment, “support cancer care,” and, as the Post initially reported, “help cover medical services,” “recruit doctors,” and “provide burial services to veterans.”

News of the proposed cuts was quickly picked up by Democratic lawmakers, who capitalized on its godawful optics. “Every veteran has a right to be outraged that an unelected billionaire and his teenage interns have thoughtlessly terminated VA contracts that support chemotherapy, imaging services, and more,” tweeted Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) on Thursday. “DOGE is clearly a serious threat to VA patient safety.” She added: “Kick Elon OUT of the VA.”

“Elon Musk and Donald Trump are halting contracts at the VA which include veterans’ cancer treatment – chemotherapy, radiation, imaging, and more – as well as care for veterans treated for toxic exposure,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Northern Virginia). “This is monstrous,” he said.

Musk’s organization has embedded itself at the VA, as it has at many other agencies across the government. Empowered by legally questionable executive orders from Trump, DOGE has swiftly sought to downsize and hamstring large parts of the federal bureaucracy, all in the name of some a “efficiency” mandate.

DOGE and Musk have bragged of saving Americans billions by destroying various government agencies and programs. However, recent analyses have found that DOGE is either making lots of factual errors in its calculations or is simply lying about how much it’s saving. A recent report from NBC found that DOGE’s website provided a “wildly exaggerated and false impression of government spending,” and other reports have shown that DOGE’s initial savings estimates are often off by billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, Musk’s organization has shut down and attacked organizations that actually save consumers money. DOGE notably hobbled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has clawed back billions of dollars from predatory corporations, and the Trump administration also recently fired inspector generals across the government—officials tasked with rooting out abuse and fraud. Those IGs have since sued the government over their dismissal.

DOGE has also been attacking the Social Security Administration, which is responsible for dispensing retirement benefits for some 73 million Americans. It has helped to terminate the leases of SSA offices across the country, and under the agency’s recently appointed commissioner, the agency is reportedly planning to lay off half of its workforce as part of Trump and DOGE’s broader government downsizing agenda. Such a move would surely all but doom the program. “Social Security is being driven to a total system collapse,” tweeted Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland who also served as the commissioner of SSA under Biden. “I give the DOGE kids and co-president Musk 30-90 days before they crater it to the point of interruption of benefits.”


https://gizmodo.com/under-doge-americas ... 2000569335

[ti-amie]

U.S. border egg seizures up nearly 40% as prices soar due to avian flu

By Michael Williams and The Associated Press

Posted February 27, 2025 3:50 pm. Last Updated February 27, 2025 3:55 pm.
With eggs getting more and more expensive in the United States, American border agents are scrambling to stop egg smuggling from Canada and Mexico.

According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, egg seizures are up nearly 40 per cent compared to the same time last year.

The majority of travellers caught with eggs are those who had declared them, the CBP says. However, those who don’t declare the items as they travel across the border risk a $300 fine.

Due to diseases like avian flu, it’s illegal to bring egg products into the U.S.

Tammara Soma, Simon Fraser University’s food system lab director, says egg rationing in the U.S. is likely to be what’s driving the trend.

“In the U.S. in particular, they have been rationing eggs, where people can only buy, say one or two [cartons]. They really restrict the limits. We don’t have that limitation right now in Canada,” she told 1130 NewsRadio.

“Many stores have resorted to limiting the number of purchases as well, and I think that impacts people’s decisions.”

Soma adds that people can “get desperate.”

“I am not sure if it’s just individuals, or if it is also businesses, like small businesses, bakeries and others,” she explained.

The egg seizures come as the U.S. Agriculture Department predicts record egg prices could soar more than 40 per cent in 2025.

The main reason egg prices have climbed in the U.S. — hitting an all-time average high of $4.95 USD per dozen this month — is that more than 166 million birds have been slaughtered to limit the avian flu virus’ spread when cases are found. Most were egg-laying chickens.

Just since the start of the year, more than 30 million egg layers have been killed.

The average prices conceal just how bad the situation is, with consumers paying more than a dollar per egg — over $12 a dozen — in some places in the U.S.

Prices have more than doubled since before the outbreak began, costing consumers at least $1.4 billion last year, according to an estimate by agricultural economists at the University of Arkansas. Restaurants like Denny’s and Waffle House started adding surcharges to egg dishes.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2025/02/27/ ... res-up-40/

[ti-amie]

To anyone saying this has happened before, that this happens in the private sector, that this is just a normal part of life:

You’re wrong. Never in our history has an employer set out to punish their workforce. The worst that they do is put profits over people. Now, the largest employer in the world is actively trying to make their employees miserable, traumatized, and devastated. They are punishing their employees. They hate us. They encourage others to hate us. They want to decimate their workforce with NO regard to how it will harm the country’s economy. This isn’t profits over people because they’re actively INCREASING the costs to run the government and increasing inefficiencies. It will be 4 years of this but most likely longer. The job sector will become vicious and bleak. There are no options for public assistance when we can’t find a job because the public assistance is being defunded. This is unprecedented. Do not tell us to not be anxious. We are justified in our terror.

**to everyone responding and upvoting, thank you so much for the validation and solidarity

Oogaman00

I think you're missing the obvious point that if a CEO set out as his primary goal to destroy his company from within the board would certainly hold an emergency session and get him the (expletive) out of there

[ponchi101]

As much as the analogy is very accurate, what could be done? Hold a referendum to remove Tiny?
He is the CEO and the board of directors are Congress, the Senate, and the SCOTUS. What can they do?

[ti-amie]

Texas official warns against “measles parties” as outbreak keeps growing
Twenty people have been hospitalized. Most cases are in children.

Beth Mole – Feb 28, 2025 4:16 PM |

A Texas health authority is warning against "measles parties" as the outbreak in West Texas grew to at least 146 cases, with 20 hospitalized and one unvaccinated school-age child dead. The outbreak continues to mainly be in unvaccinated children.

In a press briefing hosted by the city of Lubbock, Texas, on Friday, Ron Cook, chief health officer at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, offered the stark warning for Texans in his opening statements.

"What I want you to hear is: It's not good to go have measles parties because what may happen is—we can't predict who's going to do poorly with measles, be hospitalized, potentially get pneumonia or encephalitis and or pass away from this," Cook said. "So that's a foolish idea to go have a measles party. The best thing to do is make sure that you're well-vaccinated."

Lubbock sits about 90 miles northwest of the outbreak's epicenter in Gaines County, which is one of the state's least vaccinated counties. It has recorded 98 of the outbreak's 146 cases. While Lubbock has only reported two of the 146 cases, patients from elsewhere have been treated in Lubbock. That includes the first two cases in the outbreak as well as the child who died of the infection earlier this week, who was not a resident of Lubbock.

It's unclear if any measles parties are occurring in Gaines or elsewhere; "It's mostly been... social media talk," Cook said in response to a follow-up question from Ars. He noted that measles parties and chickenpox parties were more common practices decades ago, before vaccines for both diseases were available. But he again warned about the dangers today. "Please don't do that. It's just foolishness; it's playing roulette," he said.

Cook, along with Lubbock's director of public health, Katherine Wells, said they see no end in sight for the outbreak, which now spans nine counties in Texas, many of which have low vaccination rates. "This outbreak is going to continue to grow," Wells said, declining to forecast how high the final case count could go after a reporter raised the possibility of several hundred.

So far, 116 of the 146 cases are under the age of 18, with 46 being between the ages of 0 and 4. Only five of the 146 were vaccinated with at least one dose of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Messaging

On a more positive note, Wells reported that the outbreak has seemed to sway some vaccine-hesitant parents to get their children vaccinated. Just yesterday in Lubbock, over 50 children came into the city's clinic for measles vaccines. Eleven of those children had vaccine exemptions, meaning their parents had previously gone through the state process to exempt their child from having to receive routine childhood vaccines to attend school. "Which is a really good sign; that means our message is getting out there," Wells said.

So far in the outbreak, which erupted in late January, messaging about the disease and the importance of vaccination has exclusively come from state and local authorities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only released a brief statement late Thursday, which was not sent through the agency's press distribution list. It did, however, note that "vaccination remains the best defense against measles infection."

During a cabinet meeting Wednesday, US Health Secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to a question about the outbreak, offering a variety of inaccurate information. Kennedy downplayed the outbreak, falsely claiming that "it's not unusual." But, this is an unusual year for measles in the US. As epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina noted on Bluesky, the number of US measles cases this year has already surpassed the total case counts from eight of the previous 15 years. And it is only February.

Kennedy also said there had been two deaths—fortunately, only one child has died. He further claimed that measles patients were being hospitalized "mainly for quarantine," which is false and a misuse of the word quarantine. A quarantine refers to separating people who have been exposed to an illness to see if they become sick. For people who are known to be sick, the term is "isolation."

In the press briefing Friday, Cook refuted Kennedy's suggestion that infected people were being hospitalized largely for isolation purposes. He described measles patients being hospitalized with severe symptoms. "Most of them are either severely dehydrated from just the infection itself, and/or lots of low oxygen levels—hypoxia. And that's from the inflammation in the lungs," Cook said. In some patients, their oxygen is so low they need supplemental oxygen or intubation and ventilator support, which can lead to antibiotic use to ward off secondary bacterial infections, he explained.

While the end of the outbreak remains uncertain, so does the beginning. Rumors are reportedly circulating in Texas that the measles virus was brought into the area by an undocumented immigrant. Wells shot down that rumor, indicating that there is no evidence to support it and that most measles outbreaks in the US begin with an unvaccinated citizen traveling abroad and bringing the virus home with them.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/ ... s-growing/