{"id":146347,"date":"2026-02-06T18:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T18:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146347\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T18:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T18:32:07","slug":"new-case-of-measles-reported-at-school-in-st-petersburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146347\/","title":{"rendered":"New case of measles reported at school in St. Petersburg"},"content":{"rendered":"

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – New cases of measles are being reported across Florida, one of the latest at a Catholic high school in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

In a Feb. 4 letter to parents, the administration of St. Petersburg Catholic High School confirmed that a sophomore student has a confirmed case of measles. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe student in question has not been present at school since January 27th and we are unaware of any additional cases at this time,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n

The school said it is working with the Florida Department of Health to ensure the safety of students and staff. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile diocesan immunization policy allows for medical exemptions from a licensed physician, 99.2% of our student body is vaccinated against measles. Given the school\u2019s high vaccination rate, we plan to continue all classes and activities as normal,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n

Another outbreak involving up to 20 students as been reported at Ave Maria University, a Catholic institution near Naples.<\/p>\n

According to a dashboard<\/a> maintained by Johns Hopkins University, Florida has had the fourth largest number of confirmed cases in the U.S. with 24 so far in 2025-2026. <\/p>\n

South Carolina has by far the most, 878, followed by Utah with 243 and Arizona with 254, with those three states experiencing ongoing outbreaks that began in 2025. <\/p>\n

According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles is highly contagious. You can spread measles to others from four days before through four days after the rash appears. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf one person has it, up to 9 out of 10 people nearby will become infected if they are not protected,\u201d the CDC website says<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Sympoms include fever, cough, coryza, or conjunctivitis. Tiny white spots inside the mouth may also appear 2\u20133 days after symptoms first appear.<\/p>\n

A rash of both flat and raised skin lesions begins on the head and face and then spreads downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs, and feet. The spots may become joined together as they spread from the head to the body. Fever may spike to more than 104 when the rash appears.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WWSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – New cases of measles are being reported across Florida, one of the latest at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4590,3757,28,70813,17196,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-146347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-ave","tag-catholic","tag-florida","tag-maria","tag-measles","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}