Plague News: Measles Deaths, Bird Flu Updates, COVID Still Here - 3.9.25

In this issue:

• Measles Kills Two People, Cases Found in Twelve U.S. States
• Bird Flu Posed to Become Major Pandemic
• COVID Infections May Not Provide Immunity to Future Infection
• Other Notable Infectious Disease Outbreaks in the U.S.
• Recommended Reading

I hope to write about something other than pandemics and outbreaks at some point on this blog. Plague News will always be free and unpaywalled. I should probably mention I accept tips and donations on Kofi.

Measles Kills Two People, Cases Found in Twelve U.S. States

Sadly, in February 2025 measles claimed the life of an unvaccinated child in Texas. An unvaccinated adult has also died from the disease. These are the first measles deaths in the U.S. since 2015.

Texas measles outbreak marks first fatality as more cases reported

A child in Texas has died from measles, the first death from measles in the United States since 2015.

STATHelen Branswell

Unvaccinated New Mexico adult tests positive for measles after death -Reuters 3.6.25

Texas, New Mexico, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York City, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Alaska, and Washington have all seen measles cases in 2025. Texas is leading the way with 200+. There are also significant cases in New Mexico.

Mennonites, West Texans at center of measles outbreak choose medical freedom over vaccine mandates

The virus is spreading among Gaines County’s Mennonite community, where government mandates are not trusted. But another outbreak is also spreading, and that’s mistrust in vaccines and public health.

PBS NewsDevi Shastri, Associated Press

Measles is literally the most contagious disease known to humankind.

I appreciate this Lancet editorial calling out the deluge of anti-vaccine misinformation exacerbating these infections and killing children.

One estimate has put the revenue social media platforms make from anti-vaccine content at US $1 billion per year. Robert F Kennedy Jr. himself was chairman of the Children's Health Defense, a non-profit focused on “eliminating toxic exposure” and focused on vaccines, including launching lawsuits against vaccine developers. The organisation reported revenues of US $23·5 million in 2023, and at that time, paid Robert F Kennedy Jr. a salary of $20, 000 per week. - The Lancet 3.6.25

If you are going to read anything read this editorial: Facts and Myths about Measles - The Lancet 3.6.25

Bird Flu Posed to Become Major Pandemic

A few publications of note have written warnings on the near-future, nauseating-odds possibility of bird flu becoming an uncontrollable pandemic.

Prepare now for a potential H5N1 pandemic - Science 3.6.25

Are We on the Cusp of a Major Bird Flu Outbreak?

Scientists weigh in on the spread of H5N1 and highlight clues that portend what might come next

Harvard Medical SchoolCATHERINE CARUSO

I appreciate this bird flu article in the hyper-local Cambridge Day.

How the U.S. bird flu epidemic has taken flight, which pets are most at risk and what we can do - Cambridge Day

Where does our avian flu epidemic come from? Commercial, large-scale poultry farming and migrating birds squeezed into smaller and smaller areas as people destroy wetlands, experts say. And after birds pass it to each other, it comes for us.

Cambridge DayJeanine Farley

This article is an easy to read and a through summary of how we got to where we are in wildlife and domestic animals, a good one to send to your cat friends who might also not read the news a lot.

Happy to see Massachusetts has been the only state to test all its dairy farms (although this article is from September 2024).

The U.S. government's response to bird flu, or lack of, is meant to kill and harm by halting and ceasing federal funding for vaccine research and education. These people are fucking Nazis and trying to destroy humanity.

Vaccines save lives. It is an insult to millions of ghosts, the rest of alive humanity and to our own glittering beings to reject a life-saving miracle invention.

HHS review of a vaccine contract sparks worries about preparedness for a potential bird flu pandemic

HHS is re-evaluating a nearly $600 million contract with Moderna to develop and test vaccines against flu viruses that could prompt pandemics.

STATHelen Branswell

COVID Infections May Not Provide Immunity to Future Infection

Believing repeat SARS (COVID) infections "boost your immune system" is bullshit garbage originating from anti-vaxxer rhetoric. Stop. Repeat COVID infections increase your chances of Long COVID and other disabling symptoms, including good ol' death.

And now COVID infection may no longer provide any immunity to future infections.

Study suggests COVID-19 infection no longer grants long-lasting immunity

New research suggests that natural immunity after a COVID-19 infection has fallen sharply since Omicron became the dominant variant.

If a majority of the U.S. population has had multiple COVID infections, there's a terrible chance a majority of the population has newly compromised immune systems, and/or worsened.

Five-percent of the U.S. population has estimated to have Long COVID. With new existential threats like measles and bird flu growing into pandemics, mortality will likely be devastating and catastrophic on a severely immunocompromised population.

This might also be why we see these eradicated diseases resurging. Everyone's ripe for sickness.

Other Notable Infectious Disease Outbreaks in the U.S.

‘We’re losing decades of our life to this illness’: long Covid patients on the fear of being forgotten

Five years on from March 2020, millions of people still face debilitating symptoms, with huge repercussions on public health and productivity. But politicians are starting to pretend the pandemic never happened

The GuardianKathryn Bromwich

I’m a Long COVID Researcher. And I Have Long COVID

A Q&A w/Alison Cohen, PhD, MPH, who is among the estimated 5% of the population with Long COVID. She talks through the implications of Long COVID, and how she applies her scientific and personal experience to research this debilitating condition.

University of California San FranciscoUniversity of California San Francisco

Why increasing rates of tuberculosis in the UK and US should concern everyone

England is at risk of losing its ‘low TB incidence’ status.

The ConversationJessica Potter

Public toilets could help stop the spread of dysentery (yes, dysentery) in Portland

Cases in Multnomah County among people who have not left the country nearly doubled last year, and the number appears to be rising.

oregonliveLillian Mongeau Hughes | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Recommended Reading

Why Are People Wearing Masks in 2025?

A Mental Health Professional’s Perspective

Misfit Mental HealthSteph Fowler, LCPC, CADC

How to inoculate yourself (and others) against viral misinformation

Author Sander van Linden explains how to build immunity against misinformation, similar to vaccines that protect against pathogens.

Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsSara Goudarzi

One in three NHS doctors so tired their ability to treat patients is affected, survey finds

Exclusive: Medics more sleep deprived now than during Covid crisis amid staff shortages and surging demand

The GuardianAndrew Gregory

In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John Green Takes On the Inequities of Infectious Disease

Novelist John Green talks about his new nonfiction book, Everything is Tuberculosis, and the inequities in treatment for the highly infectious disease.

Scientific AmericanRachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Naeem Amarsy, Alex Sugiura

If you want to purchase high-quality masks and PPE, I recommend Bona Fide Masks.

Existentialism is crucial to survival right now. Despite all odds and misinformation, you must believe in yourself, and in turn, you must believe in other people, and you have to believe they also want to live a meaningful life.

And if you have decided that life has no meaning, this realisation gives you absolute freedom to create your own meaning and action. You can be good chaotic or bad chaotic. Right now, in the time of American (and South African) Nazis, neutral is bad.

Doing nothing at all or ignoring the problem is harmful as being the person initiating the harm.

Life means to me: to help as many people as I possibly can with the time and skills I have. And to always punch the Nazis in the face.

I know way too much about this shit; Nazis, angry ghosts and plagues to stay silent. To have ever stayed silent.

Absurdity and brandishing truth is how you destroy fascism. In other words: art and journalism.

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Plague News is a round-up of pandemic and infectious disease news focusing on so-called New England and the rest of the so-called United States.