We study pandemics, and the resurgence of measles is a grim sign of what’s coming

Measles is an economic scourge

Recurring outbreaks of measles in the US will mean high economic costs. Countries have pursued measles elimination in part because of the clear economic benefits of stopping domestic transmission of the virus.

Studies have found that the cost of containing measles outbreaks is often as much as tens of thousands of dollars per case. One outbreak in Washington state in 2018-2019, which involved 72 cases—a small outbreak compared with what states are reporting now—cost US$3.2 million for the public health response, medical expenses, and productivity losses. The Common Health Coalition found that a sustained 1 percent drop in MMR coverage would cost the US billions across health care systems and the economy.

An opening for infectious disease

As concerning as recent outbreaks of measles have been, they herald a larger systemic problem.

How a country controls measles can be viewed as a proxy for how well it would control many other diseases. That’s because the steps for stopping the spread are the same: deploying vaccines to prevent infections, detecting and isolating cases when they occur, identifying exposed contacts of infected people and making sure they stay home if they’re likely to be contagious, and treating sick people safely.

But besides measles, we’ve already seen infections that were once controlled, like whooping-cough, that rose sharply in 2024 and remained high in 2025 compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s because controlling the spread of many infectious diseases depends on the public’s trust in the basic components of public health. Declining MMR vaccine coverage reveals underlying challenges in public support for vaccines. Public confidence in the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also eroding, according to polling from 2023 to early 2026 by the health policy organization KFF. Less than half of the people polled trust the government even “a fair amount” to provide reliable vaccine information.

These growing cracks in the country’s public health armor will complicate efforts to protect Americans from future disease threats—whether an outbreak, a pandemic, or a biological attack.

Jennifer B. Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center, Brown University, and Andrea Uhlig, research associate at the Pandemic Center, Brown University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.