A child died in a rural area in upstate New York after contracting measles, the first death recorded by the US state due to the disease in 30 years, according to what state officials announced on Monday.
State Governor Kathy Hokul said that the child died in Lewis County, which is located about 150 kilometers north of Syracuse, according to what the Associated Press reported.
The United States succeeded in stopping the local spread of measles in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, but in recent years it has fallen below the 95 percent coverage rate necessary to prevent the spread of this viral disease.
Hokol, who belongs to the Democratic Party, said that the child’s death represents “a painful reminder of what is at stake when Washington deliberately undermines decades of progress in protecting Americans from preventable diseases.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed three measles-related deaths in the United States this year, but state health departments reported higher numbers.
Health officials in Pennsylvania announced five deaths this year, and are investigating the possibility of a sixth death.
Hokol declared a “disaster emergency” in early October, against the backdrop of recording cases of measles in neighboring states and rural areas in New York.
The executive order expanded the scope of people allowed to administer measles vaccines to include paramedics, midwives and others, and also allowed nurses to join doctors in issuing orders for tests.
On Monday, the US Supreme Court rejected a request submitted by the administration of President Donald Trump to force the state of California to cancel the ballots of more than 20,000 people sent by mail, on the grounds that they may not be American citizens.
In a brief, unsigned decision, the Supreme Court rejected the request, without providing any justification for its decision, one day before the midterm elections.
According to what Agence France-Presse reported, the federal government initially accused California of illegally including 190,000 people on voter lists, before reducing the number to 20,000, and filing an emergency lawsuit after the start of early voting to prevent the state from sending ballots to them.
The Supreme Court's decision came after lower courts rejected the request last week, and again (Monday), and one of the judges described the Justice Ministry's move as blatant interference in the electoral process.
Trump has been talking for months about possible fraud in the midterm congressional elections, amid expectations that Democrats are likely to win at least one of the two chambers.
Last week, Federal Judge David Carter refused to issue an order to confiscate ballots, supporting the position of the Democratic-led California authorities.
Carter said, “The actions of the Department of Justice reflect a pattern of attempts to interfere in the elections,” while Judge James Boasberg considered that the lists of people suspected of being non-citizens were “flawed.”
In a similar case in the neighboring state of Nevada, the administration said that it initially identified 16,000 non-American voters, but the number decreased after verification operations to 185 people and then to zero.
In another widely followed election case, a federal judge in Alaska rejected a request from the Trump administration to suspend certification of the state's Senate election results if the Democratic candidate wins.
The Ministry of Justice had requested to prevent the adoption of the results if the current Republican Senator Dan Sullivan lost, on the grounds that another candidate with the same name may have cut off part of the votes.
Today, Americans go to the polls to choose their representatives in Congress, in midterm elections that are considered a referendum on President Donald Trump’s policies and determine the balance of power during the last two years of his term.
In the final hours before the vote, the Democratic and Republican parties intensified their efforts to mobilize voters, while Trump, in a speech in Washington yesterday, sought to rally his supporters to ensure that Republicans maintain their majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate, while Democrats hope to seize control of Congress to obstruct his legislative agenda, and open investigations into his administration.
The elections come amid record early turnout in several states, after more than 54 million Americans cast their votes before the polls opened.
Democrats see these numbers as encouraging indicators of strong mobilization within their ranks, while Republicans are counting on heavy participation of their supporters today.
But the Democrats' hopes collide with internal divisions revealed by the Michigan crisis, where former candidate Haley Stevens announced her support for a Republican competitor instead of her party's candidate, Abdul Rahman Al-Sayyed, who is seeking to become the first Muslim member of the US Senate. This step not only threatens the party's chances of seizing the seat, but also portends the difficulty of uniting its ranks and utilizing its legislative majority if it wins.
