Texas health officials say the number of people with measles has increased to 146 in rural West Texas outbreak that led this week to the death of a school-aged child who was not vaccinated.

Opting against vaccines may uphold ideas of personal freedom, but it has doomed the county at the center of the Texas measles outbreak

Measles was considered to be eliminted in the U.S. in 2000, thanks to vaccine developments. But vaccination rates have dropped since the covid pandemic began.