What Next: TBD | Hot Measles Summer

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s a record-breaking year for America: we’ve now had the most reported cases of measles since the disease was declared “eradicated” in 2000. How did public health backslide so hard that it undid decades of progress—and is there any hope we can get back on track? Guest: Dylan Scott, senior health correspondent at Vox. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	There are days when you're hungry for McDonald's.
0:03.0	Then there are days when you're Big Arch hungry for McDonald's.
0:08.0	You'll get to know the difference.
0:10.0	New Big Arch for Big McDonald's hunger.
0:15.0	Until 9th of September, from 11 a.m.,
0:18.0	participating restaurants only, subject to availability.
0:29.8	In the first six months of this year, the measles outbreak that started in a small Mennonite community in Texas has slowly been growing.
0:34.0	Spread to a couple of nearby states, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and we've also seen outbreaks pop up across the country from South Carolina to Montana.
0:44.7	This disease is all over the place.
0:48.5	That's Dylan Scott, a senior correspondent at Fox.
0:52.1	In those first six months, kids were in school, which gave the disease the opportunity
0:57.1	to spread.
0:58.4	But Dylan says it also means that children were in a routine.
1:02.5	They were going to school, coming home, and generally staying pretty contained in their
1:07.9	community.
1:09.2	And now it's summertime.
1:11.3	And suddenly people are going to be moving all over the place.
1:14.6	You know, I've sent my kid to his recreation center summer camp this week.
1:21.1	I think a lot of other parents are doing the same.
1:24.1	People are taking family vacations, you know, getting into airplanes, going to crowded
1:29.7	beaches or crowded museums and city parks. Like, everybody is out and about moving around,
1:37.3	interacting with other people during the summer. And for the most part, that's great.
	...

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