DALLAS COUNTY, Texas — Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins has vast experience dealing with public health outbreaks, from the Ebola scare in 2014 to COVID starting in 2020.
When it comes to the current measles outbreak in Texas, Judge Jenkins said he’s in regular contact with his counterparts across the state, and they’re working daily in Dallas County to avoid an outbreak.
“We would encourage people to get vaccinated because this vaccine’s been around for longer than I’ve been alive. And it’s a safe vaccine. It’s very effective, 97% effective. Even if there’s an outbreak around you, you won’t get it,” Judge Jenkins told us on Inside Texas Politics.
Judge Jenkins said their primary focus is on schools with low vaccination rates. And the county is offering to hold vaccination clinics on some of those campuses.
Or he said parents could take their kids to their pediatrician or visit Dallas County Health and Human Services.
There are currently 259 confirmed measles cases in Texas, the most in more than three decades.
And at least one unvaccinated child has died.
No cases have been reported in Dallas County amid the outbreak.
With all of the federal cuts and funding freezes, we asked Judge Jenkins how confident he was he’d receive help from the federal government.
“The people that are at the CDC now that are working with Texas and working with us on this are doing a good job, as is the state of Texas Department of State Health Services. Now if cuts happen, that would damage our ability to respond,” he said.