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A developing outbreak of measles in a notoriously poorly vaccinated Northern Arizona town is getting worse.
Two weeks ago, Mohave County reported a single positive measles case in the town of Colorado City, which sits on the Arizona-Utah border. A week later, there were nine cases. Now, according to information kept by the Arizona Department of Health Services, the caseload has jumped to 12.
That brings the total number of confirmed measles cases in Arizona to 16, a total that includes four cases in Navajo County reported in June. Navajo County managed to avoid an outbreak, but Mohave County does not appear to have been so fortunate.
On Wednesday, the health department's Facebook page shared an informational graphic about measles, but a spokesperson for the Mohave County Health Department did not respond to inquiries from Phoenix New Times. The health department has not shared demographic information about the people who have tested positive. Measles can be particularly deadly for young children who are unvaccinated.
New Times also reached out to Creek Valley Health Clinic, which has operated in Colorado City since 2019, but did not receive a response. Last week, clinic CEO Hunter Adams told New Times that the clinic had “definitely seen an increase in the (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine.”
Colorado City is a hamlet defined by its association with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an extremist Mormon offshoot. The town is probably most known for its association with Warren Jeffs, a notorious FLDS figure currently serving time in Texas for sexual assault. The highly contagious disease has found fertile ground, as the community is one of the least-vaccinated populations in Arizona.
“That town, the vaccination rates are the lowest of the low,” said Will Humble, the executive director of the nonprofit Arizona Public Health Association. “Mohave County is low to begin with but…their vaccine rates up there are low even for Mohave County.”
According to Humble, the county’s measles vaccination rate is second-to-last among Arizona counties, with only Yavapai County having a higher rate of unvaccinated. Only 78% of Mohave County kindergarten students are vaccinated for measles, per ADHS statistics. A vaccination rate of 95% is required to achieve herd immunity.
Vaccine skepticism or hesitancy has been fueled recently by unfounded claims that vaccines — including the MMR vaccine, which is 93% effective against measles after the first dose and rises to 97% effective after the second — are ineffective or harmful. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Donald Trump-appointed secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the foremost purveyor of such conspiracy theories.
Perhaps the most pressing question is how much further the number of infected will climb. “They’re not releasing much info,” Humble said, stressing that the lack of transparency coming from Mohave County makes forecasting the Colorado City outbreak difficult. If it does spread, Humble added, the town’s remote location may make it more likely to move north into Utah than south into the rest of Arizona.
“It depends on things that I don’t know the answers to,” Humble said. “If this is all one family…and they haven’t been going out, and they were recluse-type people, then it may not mushroom out and become big. But if this is spread among several families who have a bunch of susceptible siblings because they’re also unvaccinated, it could really spread.”
The Colorado City Unified School District Governing Board discussed the outbreak during a Monday meeting. The meeting agenda raised the question of whether the district should require parents of unvaccinated children to sign a waiver to attend school, though district superintendent Carol Timpson said no such action was taken. Timpson said the school district has had only one case among its students.
