| It cost Colorado taxpayers more than $491,000 to contain a measles outbreak that infected just 10 people in the Denver area, according to a new report from my colleagues in The Washington Post newsroom. In a visually stunning story filled with data, Naema Ahmed, Lena H. Sun and Aaron Steckelberg broke down the human and financial investments it took to curb the outbreak from growing. It’s an illustration of the costs associated with handling outbreaks of measles, one of the most contagious vaccine-preventable illnesses. It comes as states are trying to manage their budgets and tamp down on health care costs rising in other areas. Outbreaks in other states have included at least 10 times more patients than the Denver area flare-up so far this year — including Utah, (518 cases), Virginia (177) and Arizona (127) — which has likely skyrocketed costs in those areas. “No two outbreaks are the same,” Ginger Stringer, an epidemiology response program manager at Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment, told The Post. “This outbreak was unique in that both of the schools that were affected had very high vaccination rates. That is why we’re looking at a few weeks of data and not a few months of data to complete this investigation.” → Measles cases are at the highest level in 35 years. So far in 2026 alone, there have been dozens of new outbreaks of measles and 2,777 confirmed cases of the disease across the country — a 21 percent increase of cases compared to all of last year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Measles has sent nearly 200 people to the hospital this year, impacting other health care costs. Almost all the cases are among those who haven’t received a measles vaccine. And that number could grow even higher. Last week, Lena reported that vaccine exemptions among U.S. kindergartners reached another record high in the 2025-26 school year — putting more communities at risk of not reaching the 95 percent threshold for “herd immunity,” or overall protection from a single case turning into a larger outbreak. Read the full story: “Fighting measles is expensive. See what it cost to contain 10 cases.” WHAT TO WATCH There are several other threads related to vaccines you should have on your radar: - Request for information: The Trump administration is going back to the drawing board after legal setbacks to its vaccine policy changes. The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking public input on how vaccines for children are categorized — routine, risk-based and shared clinical decision-making — and whether to add new classifications. The request for information also seeks feedback on individual autonomy, religious freedom and vaccine mandates, among other topics.
The responses will help the federal government “evaluate whether the current recommendation framework adequately advances scientific rigor, informed choice, and public trust,” HHS said in a release on Monday. But critics argue the Trump administration is using the move to create a legal pathway to reduce the recommended vaccines for children after losing in court. “This notice is the department going back to run the process it skipped. But it asks a different question than the one it lost on,” Jake Scott, a clinical associate professor at Stanford Medicine, wrote in a social media post. “Nothing in it asks whether those five vaccines belong where they were put. That is treated as settled. What is open for comment is what the categories should be called and whether new ones should be added.” - MMR muddle: “The MMR vaccine is not a lethal vaccine,” Mehmet Oz, a doctor who’s in charge of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” this weekend — after repeatedly being prodded by the show’s host, Margaret Brennan following comments made by President Donald Trump earlier this month about the combination measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
While signing an executive order that aims to overhaul the childhood vaccination schedule, Trump said that there is a “possibility” MMR vaccines “are quite lethal,” and advocated for separating them into three individual shots — which would require manufacturers to develop all new products and could take years. “Separately, they are not at all lethal but very effective,” he said. Trump offered no evidence for the claims. - New FDA chief nominated: Trump’s pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration, Heidi Overton, has been a part of several high-level domestic policy actions as a senior White House official — including the recent vaccine executive order. It could cause issues with her confirmation, as Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) expressed “strong concerns” with her nomination in a social media post. Cassidy leads the Senate panel responsible for advancing health care nominees.
- RFK Jr. on the campaign trail: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned the safety of childhood vaccinations, has been on a nationwide tour campaigning alongside GOP candidates. “‘Bobby Unleashed’ is our motto in the West Wing … We want him guns blazing,” a White House official told Politico last week. Notably absent from Kennedy’s appearances, however, has been messaging on vaccines, a report in The Hill points out.
$103,265 That’s how much the Trump administration is proposing to charge when applying for a high-skilled worker visa, also known as an H-1B visa. It’s a pivot after a federal judge invalidated a previous attempt by the White House to instate a $100,000 fee for these visas. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that the new rule would generate $8.8 billion per year for the federal government. Read the full story: “Trump administration proposes $103,000 fee for H-1B visas after legal setback.” Why it matters: Hospitals and other health care employers, which employ thousands of foreign-born workers, have pushed back on the policy, arguing that it could harm patients in rural and underserved areas where many of these providers work. ICYMI from The Post: “Rural America relies on foreign doctors. Trump’s visa fee shuts them out.” I covered a recent study published in JAMA showing that a large percentage of the country’s doctors were born outside of the United States — more than half, in some specialities such as geriatrics, kidney care and sleep medicine. Foreign-born doctors treat patients who are also more likely to have a harder time getting care. “What it was like to go through a trial that could revolutionize cancer treatment,” writes The Post’s Daniel Wu. “ | 
