Parents Trying Hard to Keep Their Children From VaX Instead They Got The Measles'
 |
| Spartanburg County in South Carolina is ground zero for the largest measles outbreak since 2000. One school has a vaccination rate of 21 percent. |
Tried to Shield Their Children From Vaccines. Instead They Got Measles.
The Global Academy of South Carolina, a public charter school, is housed in a glittering modern building on a sprawling campus, a 10-minute drive from the spunky downtown Spartanburg. It has Ukrainian- and Russian-language teachers on staff, reflecting that many of its roughly 600 students belong to a thriving Slavic community, whose lives revolve around the evangelical churches in surrounding Spartanburg County.
But on Oct. 8, South Carolina’s public health department made an ominous announcement: Global Academy was one of two schools in Spartanburg County where measles had been detected. Only 21 percent of its students were vaccinated, one of the worst rates for a public school in the state.
By Feb. 27, the outbreak centered in Spartanburg County had grown to 985 cases, mostly in unvaccinated children, accounting for the vast majority of current cases in the United States. Two children have developed a serious complication, measles encephalitis, an inflammation and swelling of the brain.
Spartanburg, on the border of North Carolina, is now ground zero for the largest measles outbreak since 2000, when the virus was declared eliminated in the United States.
People have been exposed not just in niche communities, but also where the public goes every day — Costco, Best Buy, Publix, Food Lion, Goodwill, Burger King, Walmart, Target, the library, a museum and the post office.
 |
| “This is not normal,” said Dr. Linda Bell, the state epidemiologist, at a news conference in February. “This is unprecedented.” Workers offering vaccines sit at a table outside. |
A mobile clinic in Spartanburg, S.C. Over four hours, one parent showed up.
Measles was vanquished more than 25 years ago because of high rates of vaccinated schoolchildren. But in Spartanburg, those mandates have been weakened by vaccine skepticism and the state’s religious exemption, which has driven vaccination rates perilously low.
Many parents want the right to decide medical treatments for their children. But the recent contagion shows what happens when that safety net — meant to keep children safe — is clipped.
“We have allowed measles to have a foothold in this country again, which is very unfortunate,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now leads a global health nonprofit, Resolve to Save Lives.
The Exemptions
States have long mandated immunizations before children can start day care or school. But 46 states grant exemptions for religious or personal beliefs, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research organization.
South Carolina has allowed parents to claim religious exemptions since at least 1980. To qualify, they simply must attest that immunizations “conflict with my religious beliefs.”
The number of exemptions had, until recently, remained relatively low.
But during the pandemic, anti-vaccination activism grew, with parents objecting to what they saw as coercive mandates surrounding the Covid vaccine. More parents began claiming religious exemptions.
In Spartanburg County, the percentage of students with religious exemptions has more than doubled from 4.5 percent to 9.6 percent in the 2021-2022 school year.
Today, 89 percent of Spartanburg’s students have childhood immunizations, including measles, well below the 95 percent coverage needed to prevent the virus from spreading.
Statewide, kindergarten vaccination has fallen to 91 percent in the 2024 -2025 school year from 95 percent in 2019-2020, according to the C.D.C.
Nationally over the same time period, the percentage has dropped to 93 percent from 95 percent.
Dr. Bell, the state epidemiologist, said at a recent weekly news conference that “exemptions have had a big role” in the outbreak.
 |
| A white brick storefront in Spartanburg, S.C. |
In Spartanburg County, the percentage of students with vaccination exemptions has doubled from the 2021-2022 school year.
Public health experts say that what is happening in South Carolina could be a harbinger for other states.
Across the country, there were 50 outbreaks in 2025 and 2,281 cases with three deaths — a big increase from 2024, according to the C.D.C.
This year, there have already been 10 new outbreaks and 1,136 cases, including in Spartanburg.
State Senator Margie Bright Matthews, a Democrat, has sponsored a bill to eliminate the religious exemption. But it faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled state legislature.
“I immediately started getting emails from a lot of folks saying how dare I infringe upon parental rights,” she said. “My bill does not infringe upon a parental right. It protects children.”
Henry McMaster, the state’s Republican governor, has acknowledged that measles is dangerous, but supports the exemption for parents. “What we want to do is be sure people have all the information they need,” he told reporters last month, while attending a tourism conference.
 |
| A man with gray hair and glasses sits in a brown leather club chair. |
Dan Jernigan, who resigned in protest from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Credit...Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times
Nationally, anti-vaccination activists, who are close to Robert F. Kennedy, the health secretary, are trying to repeal state laws that for decades have required children to be vaccinated against measles, polio and other diseases before they enter day care or kindergarten.
The momentum is going in the wrong direction, said Dr. Dan Jernigan, who resigned in protest in August as the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, which is part of the C.D.C.
“You’ve got some people wanting to get rid of the base line,” he said, “and for it to be purely voluntary.”
Vulnerable From the Start
Because measles is highly contagious and opportunistic, it first finds footholds among groups with low vaccination rates. Close-knit communities are especially vulnerable, and Spartanburg has a large Slavic evangelical population.
The state does not collect data on the patient’s country of origin, Dr. Bell said. But, she added, “We know that some schools with a high percentage of children from Ukrainian- or Russian-speaking families have been impacted.”
Global Academy, the public charter school that emphasizes Slavic languages, stood out for its exceptionally low percentage of immunized students. (Its principal, Mark Robertson, referred all questions for this article to the state health department.)
But there are many others that don’t come close to the 95 percent goal. Fairforest Elementary had an immunization rate of 82 percent. At Campobello Gramling, a public school, the rate is 80 percent. At Westgate Christian, a private school, the rate is 47 percent. The schools did not reply to requests for comment.
 |
| The campus of Global Academy, with large modern buildings and grass and trees. |
The Global Academy of South Carolina was one of two schools in Spartanburg County where measles had been detected in October.Credit...USA TODAY Network, via Reuters
Overall, 75 of 93 Spartanburg County schools on the state list — including public and private schools — do not have vaccination rates of at least 95 percent, according to data from the state health department.
The state’s updates suggest that churches have also been heavily affected.
On Nov. 19, the state health department notified an evangelical church, Way of Truth, that a person with measles had visited the church twice in early November. On Dec. 9, the department reported 16 new cases linked to Way of Truth.
Viktor Radion, the pastor, sat in a church conference room before a Sunday service in late February to talk about the outbreak. Speaking mostly in Russian through a translator, he said the church, with about 260 members, was no more responsible for driving the contagion than any other place, and it had fully cooperated with the health department.
The church neither “forbids nor promotes” vaccination, he said, adding, the decision is “on the conscience of each citizen.”
The Uphill Battle
There is some evidence that the outbreak has been scary enough — and the state response effective enough — that people sought out vaccination. More than 16,800 doses of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine were administered statewide in January 2026, an increase of more than 40 percent from January 2025. In Spartanburg County, vaccinations rose by 162 percent in January 2026 from January 2025.
Each jab represents a hard-fought victory. Doctors must somehow talk to skeptical parents in a way that does not alienate them, said Dr. Joshua Brownlee, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the medical school at University of South Carolina, Greenville.
“You can’t be too finger-waggy,” he said. “You have to listen.”
 |
| Dr. Natalie Bikulege-Baum stands in front on windows in her scrubs. |
Parents sometimes agree to vaccinate their children, but only if they delay or space out their shots. “If ultimately that is the way we will get a child vaccinated, then let’s do it,” said Dr. Natalie Bikulege-Baum, a pediatrician in Greenville.
The state has offered free vaccinations at health vans, parking them at a community center and churches. But the uptake has been disappointing.
From October to mid-February, the vans have dispensed 71 doses of the measles vaccine, with 22 of them in children, the state said.
But people may be getting their vaccine behind closed doors, through doctors and pharmacies, said Dr. Jernigan, who resigned from the C.D.C.
Public health authorities, he said, must offer shots, to some degree, on the down-low.
They must make sure that people “know how to get the vaccine in ways that they don’t have to show up and be in front of a camera,” Dr. Jernigan said. “They’re trying to meet people where they are, which is part of what you do in public health.”
The measles vaccine is normally given in two doses, when a child turns 1 and before kindergarten.
But the state health department has encouraged doctors to add a dose for babies ages 6 to 11 months who live in or visit the outbreak area.
Many parents, however, want to do the opposite: Delay the vaccine or stretch out the period between doses, thinking that would be easier on their child’s immune system.
“I’m not against vaccination,” explained Olga Grabovsky, whose husband is a partner at Prostor, a popular Eastern European grocery in Spartanburg. Her two older children got a vaccination, she said. But with the youngest one, she said, “I’ve been reading a little more about it,” and may delay, after talking to her doctor.
“I will choose what’s right for my family,” she said. “I have this right.”
Some doctors say better late than never. Dr. Natalie Bikulege-Baum, a pediatrician in nearby Greenville, said, “If ultimately that is the way we will get a child vaccinated, then let’s do it.”
 |
| Tracy Hobbs holds her daughter and watches her son color with chalk on the asphalt. |
Tracy Hobbs brought her 5-year-old twins to be vaccinated at a health van in Inman, S.C.
Sometimes, real-life experience persuades parents. On a recent Friday, a blue-and-yellow van offered free vaccinations in the parking lot of the Zion Hill Baptist Church in Inman, a semirural neighborhood of small wood frame houses.
Over four hours, one parent showed up. Tracy Hobbs brought her 5-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, to be vaccinated.
Ms. Hobbs had fully vaccinated her oldest child, now 7, as a baby. But after the child was diagnosed with autism at age 2, she blamed vaccination — and herself for allowing it.
She decided not to vaccinate her twins. But when they, too, were found to be autistic, she said she did more research, reading “Mama Google.”
Now, she was vaccinating her children, she said, not just for them but for “everybody’s kid around you.”
Comments