Whooping cough diagnoses in the US state of Florida rose 81% from 2024 to 2025, driven by a collapse in immunization.
Kindergarten vaccination rates in the state fell to the lowest in more than a decade in 2024, The Tallahassee Democrat reported, and below what is needed for herd immunity. Vaccine skepticism is up in much of the US, with a sharp partisan divide: Republican voters, led by the party leadership, have become much less willing to vaccinate their children, while Democrats have become slightly more pro-vaccine.
The result is that some previously well-controlled diseases have returned: There have been more than 1,500 measles cases nationwide and three deaths. Scientists warned that the virus could become endemic again within 20 years.
