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The paper said the other day that the United States is “at risk of losing its measles elimination status.”

There’s been a recent measles outbreak in Utah.

There’s been a recent measles outbreak in North Carolina.

There’s been a recent measles outbreak in Arizona.

There’s been a recent measles outbreak in Florida.

There’s been a bad one in South Carolina.

Fact is, if you go to the website for the Centers for Disease Control, there’s a map showing about half the states have at least a few cases. Including the bluest of blues and reddest of reds. Measles has no politics.

Yet, the U.S. is only “at risk” of losing its elimination status? Seems to us that elimination oughta mean eliminated. And measles isn’t eliminated in this nation.

This administration hasn’t necessarily overwhelmed the health-care experts with good news. MAHA seems determined to do the opposite. (The Health and Human Services director told Fox that he was on a carnivore diet, so his Super Bowl snacks would be just meat and ferments.) But there was good news the other day: The administrator for the CDC, the former television star Dr. Mehmet Oz, told Americans to take the measles vaccine. He even said “please.” And called the vaccine a “solution” to the current problem.

“Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses,” he explained to CNN. “But measles is one you should get your vaccine.”

The current outbreak in South Carolina is now in the hundreds, and that number has surpassed the count in the outbreak in Texas last year, according to the Associated Press. The outbreaks from coast-to-coast have most affected children, whose vaccine status is largely left up to their parents. The AP says experts have warned that the rise in the number of measles cases may have something to do with public distrust of vaccines generally.

That started during the pandemic, when health experts in government got some things wrong at first. (No to masks, yes to masks; shut down schools, open schools.) But vaccines have been proven to work in the vast majority of cases, and for many decades. Nobody serious thinks they cause things like autism. But then, nobody serious is running the HHS.

Thanks to Dr. Oz, not a small celebrity himself. We hope people listen to him. For their children’s sake.