It's been an anxious few months for Michelle Gordon,
but on Tuesday, the Texas mom was able to
visit a measles vaccination site in Lubbock with her 10
month old son, Walker, who is finally old
enough for his measles shot. I tried to get
in here as quick as I could to give him
some protection, um, because it's scary. I
mean, 2 children have died. You know,
so I don't want that to be mine. Measles
cases jumped to 561 statewide on Tuesday, up 20
in less than a week. That was as the
US government said it was sending 7 people to the
state to help battle the outbreak of the childhood disease
. Doctor Katherine Wells, Lubbock's public health director,
told Reuters she never expected an outbreak this big in
her own backyard. I knew there was unvaccinated or
vulnerable populations um in this area, um. But
seeing an outbreak that's this big, that's probably now
the largest outbreak Texas has seen in 30 years,
um, this will probably be the largest outbreak that
the US has seen, um. Probably in the
same amount of time. Doctor Wells warns the outbreak
could last a year. So far, 58 people
have been hospitalized and two unvaccinated children have died from
measles in Texas. After this news, 10-year-old Cannon
Eggleston was happy to get the vaccine. I feel
more confident that I couldn't get whatever this disease is
because if I would, it would probably hurt me
very bad because of my diabetes. On Tuesday,
Dr. David Sugarman from the The CDC gave a
rare update on the outbreak and response during a meeting
of a panel of experts. He said the response
was being hindered by the cancellation of about$11 billion
in federal grants to states that were allocated during the
COVID-19 pandemic. This money was being used to track
, prevent, and control infectious diseases, including measles
and bird flu. Sugarman said, quote, We
are scraping to find the resources and personnel needed to
provide support to Texas and other jurisdictions.