{"id":358181,"date":"2026-07-30T23:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T23:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/358181\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T23:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T23:13:09","slug":"florida-ranks-5th-in-the-country-for-the-most-measles-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/358181\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida ranks 5th in the country for the most measles cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Florida ranks fifth in the nation for the most measles cases, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n<p>On July 24, the CDC announced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/measles\/data-research\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the highest number of cases the country has seen<\/a> since 1992.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Hernando Cardona, who runs Pediatrics of Greater Orlando, said he hasn\u2019t seen a case of measles at his clinic, but he witnessed the disease while working in Colombia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was pretty bad,\u201d he said. \u201cMost cases don\u2019t go into encephalitis or anything like this, but when it does, it\u2019s bad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Florida has a lower rate of vaccination than most states, with 88.8% of kindergarteners inoculated against measles in 2025, according to the CDC\u2019s most recent data.<\/p>\n<p>The CDC recorded 141 cases in Florida near the end of July.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am an advocate for the vaccine, but if some families don\u2019t want to do the vaccine, it\u2019s well within their rights,\u201d Cardona said.<\/p>\n<p>Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo was in Orlando on July 24 and spoke about the outbreak in Collier County. He emphasized people\u2019s right to exemptions but backed the vaccine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis one happens to be effective against measles, and people should be able to have the information about the vaccine and about the disease and be able to come to a decision without any coercion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Orange County has only seen four cases in the past 10 years, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flhealthcharts.gov\/ChartsReports\/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=FrequencyMerlin.Frequency&amp;FirstTime=True\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Florida Department of Health data<\/a>, but three were confirmed in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>Cardona said the first dose children get when they\u2019re around 12 months old is 93% effective, and the second dose they get going into kindergarten is 99% effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Florida ranks fifth in the nation for the most measles cases, according to data from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3948,6466,571,6075,115,139,141,140,275,135,835],"class_list":["post-358181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-health","tag-app-latest-health-stories","tag-health","tag-health-and-medicine","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-tampa","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358181","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=358181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}