Is Texas ready for the next pandemic? New report raises questions
Texas’ ability to respond to public health emergencies like disease outbreaks and natural disasters is at risk because of historic federal funding cuts last year, a report released Thursday, May 7, concluded.
The report, titled “Ready or Not 2026: Protecting the Public’s Health From Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism,” was released at a time of immense upheaval for the nation’s public health system, after the termination of nearly $12 billion in pandemic-era grants. The report was released by the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health.
“The funding and workforce instability that’s happening at the federal level impact readiness at the local level in a pretty significant way,” said Dara Lieberman, director of government relations at Trust for America’s Health.
All 50 states and Washington, D.C., were sorted into three categories: high, middle, and low performance. Texas was graded as a low-performance state, along with 12 others. Texas ranked at the bottom because of several factors, including the share of residents who were vaccinated against the flu (39%), the share of hospitals that received an “A” grade from the Leapfrog Group (33%), and the fact that the state is not accredited by either the Public Health Accreditation Board or the Emergency Management Accreditation Program.
The Department of State Health Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The report was released after the country endured a deadly flu season for children, with 155 children dead from the flu as of April 25. It also comes as measles continues to spread in Texas. Last year, there were 762 measles cases reported in the state, and two deaths. This year, there have been 175 confirmed measles cases, most of them related to an outbreak at a federal detention facility in Hudspeth County, according to data from the Department of State Health Services.
“If you want a snapshot of how ready the United States is for biological threats, we need to look no further than what’s happening with measles,” Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, said during a press briefing.
“Measles is an outbreak that should never happen,” Lieberman said.
Statewide, the share of Texas kindergarteners who were fully vaccinated against measles has dropped from 97% in 2019 to 93% in 2024.
Nuzzo said her biggest public health worry was the upcoming World Cup, which will bring hundreds of thousands of people to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“It is an enormous event that would normally prompt a year’s plus worth of planning for readiness,” she said. State and local health departments “have been left without sufficient resources or guidance from the federal government in order to be able to plan adequately for the public health threats that could arise from the staging of these events,” she said.
