A West Texas health official praised for her efforts in curbing a measles outbreak that swept the region last year is going against traditional public health guidance in the face of new outbreaks across the country — suggesting that health officials let the virus “run through” communities where people are hesitant to get vaccinated.
Dr. Katherine Wells is the director of the Lubbock Public Health Department, whose facilities treated many of the 99 people who were hospitalized during last year’s outbreak, the nation’s largest in 25 years. Wells had a monumental crisis on her hands: The virus infected more than 700 people and killed two otherwise healthy children in the region, where immunization rates among kids were plummeting as anti-vaccine sentiment thrived. Despite the roadblocks, Wells’ plan to respond was straightforward and simple: Get more people vaccinated.
“Local public health department directors have an uphill battle — responding to measles and trying to get people vaccinated with a vaccine that we’ve had for over 50 years,” Wells told The 19th last year. “You’d hope people would trust and believe that that’s what we need to do.”
This year, as a massive measles outbreak grips South Carolina and cases crop up nationally — including in Lubbock — Wells seems to have changed her tune on government response to the virus, drawing criticism from her peers.
“I think if we’re going to continue to see measles outbreaks, there’s going to have to be a little bit of a different strategy,” Wells said earlier this month on the “Why Should I Trust You?” podcast. “It’s almost — I know this sounds horrible, but it’s almost like you have to let it run through certain populations, and then you also have to focus strategically on where you’re going to do the quarantine and isolation.”
Wells defended the heel-turn by citing the social and educational costs of repeatedly quarantining schoolchildren who are exposed, and the exhausting and ongoing work of persuading the vaccine-hesitant to inoculate.
At the height of the outbreak last year, she said, “it was difficult to know if a child had been exposed or vaccinated.”
“It just got so confusing [that] at some point, it’s just like you almost have to let everybody go to school. And I know that’s very different than what public health guidance is, but we have to look at, you know, how do you keep kids in school? How do you reduce risk? Where are your most vulnerable populations?”
Her comments drew immediate criticism from other physicians and health experts, including one of the podcast’s hosts, Dr. Mark Abdelmalek.
“My mind is blown,” he said during the episode. He continued: “Letting measles run through a community as a calculated thing isn’t really a strategy. It’s almost like surrendering, and as a physician and somebody who sees patients, it’s really hard to support a strategy that just allows a dangerous virus to spread.”
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who was a top infectious disease official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the West Texas outbreak, also criticized Wells’ proposal.
“That is what giving up in public health looks like,” he told MS NOW.
“Your job in public health is to figure out how to help a community do what is optimal for their health,” he said. “She’s not wrong: There are some communities that you are just not going to be able to convince to get vaccinated. But you don’t throw your hands up and say, ‘let’s expose a bunch of kids to measles.’”
“I mean, that’s just giving up,” he added.
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In an interview with MS NOW, Wells said she was “just trying to figure out, how do we get communities to work with us,” and felt that more nuance might be needed when dealing with groups who are wary of vaccines.
“By doing quarantines over and over again, are we just prolonging the outbreak? Sending everyone home for 21 days might not be the best way for these communities,” she said.
Wells’ comments mark a significant departure in thinking for an official who used frequent media appearances last year to advocate for traditional public health measures to stop the measles spread.
“People who are exposed and have been told they are exposed by public health need to stay home,” she said in February 2025.
Wells told MS NOW that her thinking shifted toward the end of the outbreak as she “had more time to reflect.” She said she spoke with other physicians in undervaccinated communities who agree with her.
On the podcast, neither of the other guests — both of whom are doctors working in the heart of the South Carolina outbreak — endorsed her idea.
Dr. Robin LaCroix, a pediatrician in Greenville, South Carolina, said that repeated quarantining could increase vaccine uptake because parents realize vaccinating their children is the only sure way to keep them in school.
“The one thing that we did see around where there were exposures, it gave the parents a moment of pause to say, ‘wait a minute, I can go and get my child vaccinated right now and they can return.’ I think that we saw a fair number of vaccines administered after an exposure,” LaCroix said.
She added, “I do think that the isolation and putting people into quarantine helps the public realize that this is a big deal. This is not a cold and rash.”
According to the CDC, two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine provides roughly 97% protection against the virus.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.