“The announcement appears to have been premature, and the deaths may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the governor’s hopeful staffers. The Lancaster County coroner says that it has no record of any measles deaths. State law requires that all measles deaths be reported to the coroner.”
Bogen, said the health department was confident that the infant’s death was “measles-associated,” a term that means there was laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of a measles infection.
“As a pediatrician with more than 30 years of caring for children, I have thoroughly reviewed the case investigation information and sadly can confirm that there were two recent measles-associated deaths in Lancaster County,” Bogen said in a statement.
The health department still lists two measles-associated deaths on its measles dashboard. Overall, there have been 497 confirmed cases of the virus in Pennsylvania this year.
According to the CDC, as of Aug. 30, there were 2,903 confirmed cases of measles confirmed in the United States in 2026.