ALBANY — Governor Kathy Hochul said on March 19 that she was sounding the alarm on measles being a serious disease with a prevention — vaccination.

At a Wadsworth Center press conference, Hochul announced that, so far this year, there have been four individual, unrelated cases of measles — three in New York City and one in Suffolk County.

Three of the cases are imported, said the state’s health commissioner, James McDonald, meaning they were contracted elsewhere. The origin of the fourth case is not known, he said. None of the four who contracted the disease had been vaccinated, he said.

In 2024, New York state had just 15 cases of measles, Hochul said. “But nationwide, we’re seeing very concerning trends — 350 measles cases around the country,” she went on. “Eighty-one percent right now are part of an outbreak in West Texas and of those … three-quarters are unvaccinated.”

Hochul also expressed concern that, since last fall, 350 cases of measles have been reported in Ontario, which borders New York.

“It’s not a foreign country to people who live in western New York,” said Hochul who is from there. “It’s where you go for dinner and shopping, back and forth across the border.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, known as MMR, has a 97 percent effective rate.

Hochul said she is deeply troubled by the low rates of vaccination in some New York counties: Just 55.8 percent of Yates County residents have had the MMR vaccination, while just 64.9 percent of Orange County residents have.

Statewide, the percentage of residents vaccinated with MMR is 81 percent.

The measles vaccine was first available in 1963 and, over just the last 20 years, has saved 60 million lives, said Hochul.

The press conference was held as the Trump administration is making cuts to medical and scientific research and the Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert Kennedy, has called the measles outbreak in Texas “not unusual.”

“I want to make sure that people know that, when wrong information is being disseminated, that the truth tellers stand up and say, ‘No, that is not accurate,’” said Hochul.

“We cannot go backwards in this time of fear and disinformation,” she said.

Hochul called on “our clergy, our activists, the mentors, those who are looked up to [as] the pillars of our communities, who are really the honest brokers, the ones who speak truth and people listen — I want them to help us take on this threat by helping get more information about vaccinations and literally getting shots in arms.”

In the wake of the handful of measles cases in New York, the state has launched a new web portal to support access to vaccines and public health information: ny.gov/measles

Hochul noted Kennedy’s advice that cod liver oil gets good results for people with measles and turned to McDonald to ask, “Do you agree with that, Dr. McDonald?”

“No,” he said. “It’s terrible.”

“Cod liver oil will not protect you from measles,” Hochul went on. “It’s baseless, it’s irresponsible, and puts lives at risk. He also said the decision to vaccinate is a personal one. A personal decision is what you’re going to do tonight for dinner … But when it comes to the overall health of our state, the people we love, it’s much larger than a personal decision.”

Hochul told a reporter who asked if she and other governors would push back on the vaccine skepticism coming from the White House and the cabinet, “I’m doing what I need to do, which is communicate directly with the people of New York … to let them know that they’re being lied to …. Just because you saw it on social media, it does not make it true. Stick with the doctors; stick with the facts.”

Doctor’s view

McDonald said he’d like to see over 95 percent of children under the age of 2 receive the MMR vaccine.

“What I have in New York state right now is 81.4 percent,” he said.

McDonald, who worked as a pediatrician for 35 years, described the vaccine as “very safe.” In the more than tens of thousands of doses he administered, McDonald said, he’d never once had a parent call afterward with a serious concern.

McDonald described the course of the disease. Symptoms show up a week or two after exposure, he said. It starts like a cold with a cough, runny nose, and a fever that can reach 104 or 105.

Then spots appear inside the mouth and finally a rash starts on the head and moves down the trunk and over to the extremities.

Measles, McDonald stressed, is highly contagious. He told the room full of reporters at the March 19 press conference, “If someone had measles and you guys weren’t vaccinated, everybody would get measles … Not even just everybody in the room, but anybody who walked into the room for the next hour-and-a-half.”

Because measles is so contagious, if someone is infected with it, McDonald said, a doctor should be called ahead to be seen privately rather than going to an emergency room where others could be infected.

He also stressed, “It’s not a harmless childhood infection.”

Of the 350 cases in the United States currently, he said, “We’re seeing about one in five or 20 percent end up in the hospital … That’s a number that should bother everybody.”

The most common complication of measles is pneumonia, an infection in your lungs, said McDonald, but a more serious complication is encephalitis, an infection around your brain.

He repeated, “Measles is not a harmless childhood infection. Measles is a serious disease and it can be prevented.”

On Feb. 26, the health department sent out “provider advice to all the local health departments, all the health-care providers in New York state,” McDonald said.

This was to remind them what measles looks like since most physicians have never seen a patient with measles, McDonald said, and to go over how to get a specimen to test for measles.

It’s important, McDonald said, to “address vaccine hesitancy but just as important to address vaccine confidence … It’s really important for community leaders to be ambassadors for immunizations.”

McDonald concluded, “This disease should be eliminated not just in the United States but across the globe. We could actually eradicate measles across the globe.”