Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at measles outbreaks and concerns about traveling to places where cases have been reported. We’ll also look at when Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to experiment with free buses in New York City.
Measles has exploded in South Carolina since the beginning of the year, with more than 700 cases reported. And this week, a case was reported in New York City, the first in 2026.
The patient is an infant who had recently returned from traveling overseas. The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Michelle Morse, said the child had not been vaccinated. She also that because of privacy restrictions, she could not make public how old the child was, what part of the city he or she lives in or where he or she had traveled.
The surge in South Carolina, and lesser outbreaks in Arizona and Utah, have raised concern among parents with travel plans. The city’s public school system will be closed next week for midwinter break. Some private schools will be closed on Monday for Presidents Day and on Tuesday for the beginning of the Lunar New Year.
Measles is a particular concern for travelers because the virus can linger in the air for as long as two hours after a contagious person has moved on. That means that traveling through airports and other crowded places could expose people. “It’s a very real threat,” said Dr. Roy Gulick, the chief of infectious diseases at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine.
But not if you’re vaccinated, he said.
Trump administration officials have confused many parents with often contradictory comments that undermined confidence in vaccine safety. But last weekend, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the top official of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, pleaded for people to “take the vaccine, please,” to curb the highly contagious virus.
Most measles cases are mild, but roughly one in every five unvaccinated people who get sick has to be hospitalized. Measles is a particular concern for young children and pregnant women. Here is a closer look at what you need to know.
Dr. Morse said the city continued to endorse the childhood immunization schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. She said that 97 percent of children in the city had been given both doses of the measles vaccine by the time they started kindergarten last year.
Measles is so contagious that infectious disease experts consider vaccination rates above about 95 percent essential to keeping the virus from spreading. “It’s not just about getting vaccinated yourself, but about protecting the community,” Dr. Gulick said.
Still, only 81 percent of children statewide had been given the first dose by the time they were 2 years old. In two New York counties, the vaccination rates were below 60 percent last year.
If you are not vaccinated and you are exposed to the measles virus, Dr. Gulick said, you should get the vaccination. It takes about two weeks after getting a shot to develop immunity, he said, but it can take as long as three weeks to develop the illness. “Getting vaccinated is not instantaneous protection,” he said, “but it could avoid the illness.”
A travel advisory from the state Health Department, issued last year, said that travelers should be vaccinated against measles. The department says that babies as young as 6 months can be given an “early dose” dose of the vaccine if they are bound for high-risk areas. (The usual vaccination cycle calls for the first dose to be given when a child is at least 12 months old, and another beginning a year later.)
Dr. Morse noted that the case that was confirmed this week was the city’s first in 2026. Last year there were 20 cases, six more than in 2024. Nearly 650 people got sick in an outbreak in 2018 and 2019 that started with an unvaccinated child who developed a rash — a symptom of measles — a little over a week after coming home from Israel.
Weather
After the cold spell the last couple of weeks, the temperature in Central Park climbed all the way to 41 degrees yesterday. Today won’t be that warm. Expect a high of 37 under mostly sunny skies. Tonight will be partly cloudy with a low around 23.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
Suspended (Lincoln’s Birthday).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Right now, we’re in bad shape. If it doesn’t turn around, we’re in trouble.” — Former Senator Alfonse D’Amato on Republicans’ chances in New York as they nominated Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, to run for governor.
The latest Metro news
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A no-rogue-drone zone: The Police Department wants federal permission to disable drones flying over the city. The request was made a day before the federal authorities closed the airspace around El Paso because of what they said was an incursion by a drone from a Mexican drug cartel.
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Arrest made in 2021 acid attack: Five years after Nafiah Ikram was the target of an acid attack outside her Long Island home, prosecutors charged a Brooklyn hip-hop artist who described the assault in a rap lyric.
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New York man on trial in Ireland: Henry McGowan, accused of murder at a luxury hotel in Ireland, claimed he was on a “mission from God” when he beat and strangled his father. McGowan, who was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
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An upside of cold weather: fewer rats? The prolonged stretch of cold weather could kill some rats and cause others to have fewer babies, leaving the city with a smaller rat population in the spring.
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Sails set on ice: On the Navesink River in New Jersey, the long and frigid winter renewed a 135-year-old rivalry. Spoiler alert: For the first time since 1891, there’s a new champion among wooden ice yacht racers.
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What we’re watching: On “New York Times Close Up With Sam Roberts,” Nick Corasaniti, a political reporter for The Times, assesses President Trump’s push to “nationalize” local elections, and Nicholas Fandos, who covers politics in New York, looks at why Mayor Zohran Mamdani is endorsing Gov. Kathy Hochul for re-election. The program is broadcast on CUNY TV at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays
Could buses be free for five weeks in the summer?
Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to test one of his campaign promises — making the buses free in New York City — during the FIFA World Cup tournament this summer. He is pressing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office to approve a five-week pilot program that could cost $100 million.
Hochul controls the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the buses. So far, she has been unwilling to drop the $3 bus fare, a central element of Mamdani’s affordability agenda. But the transit agency has its own need for cash for its $21 billion annual operating budget.
Mamdani was in Albany on Wednesday but did not address the pilot proposal, although he defended the idea of doing away with bus fares. He put the cost at $700 million a year, less than the M.T.A.’s estimate, and said that there were a number of tax policies that could help pay for it.
He also referred to a 2023 pilot program that he pushed for during his first term as a state assemblyman. Ridership went up and assaults on bus drivers went down during that experiment, which subsidized one route in each borough. The speed of buses remained around eight miles per hour, on average.
The World Cup games will be played from mid-June to mid-July at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, but New York is counting on a surge in tourism, much as it experienced when Super Bowl LXVIII was played there in 2014. Last month Mamdani, a soccer fan, named Maya Handa, his former campaign manager, to be the city’s World Cup czar.
METROPOLITAN diary
Loose shoes
Dear Diary:
My sister and I visited New York City in October 2023. One evening, we walked about 26 blocks from our hotel on 43rd Street to a cocktail bar in the Gramercy section. I was wearing a pair of semi-dressy shoes I had found used on eBay.
By the time we got to the bar, one shoe was loosening up. After having a cocktail, we walked a couple of blocks to the Union Square Cafe. My shoe continued to loosen, and the other shoe started to do the same.
After dinner, we started to walk back to our hotel, but after a few blocks, my shoes had totally fallen apart. I decided to take them both off and walk the next 24 blocks or so in just my socks.
Thankfully, it was a nice night, the sidewalks were clean and no one so much as glanced at my feet.
— Marjorie Martin
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson, Tara Terranova and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city.
The post Baby Who Had Traveled Overseas Is City’s First Measles Case of Year appeared first on New York Times.
