Travel and ticks, COVID vaccine, outbreak trends, and media literacy

By Madeline Wilson, MD | Friday, June 13, 2025

Key takeaways:

  • Travel resources for Yale community members
  • Preventing tick bites
  • Understanding COVID vaccine announcements
  • Measles continues to spread
  • Sharpening media literacy skills

Travel abroad

Heading to another country this summer? Our colleague Brendan Walsh, senior associate provost for Global Strategy, has resources for you.

Key points:

Tick-borne diseases 

Summer is tick season, and New England is, so to speak, Tick Central. Tick-borne diseases include not only Lyme but also babesiosis, anaplasmosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Powassan, alpha-gal syndrome (allergy to red meat), and others. These infections commonly lead to fever, aches, and/or rash and may bring serious complications. Prevention is our only defense, as no vaccines are available.

A warming climate is affecting trends in tick-borne illnesses, as species expand their territories. For a terrific tick primer, see this interactive field guide.

Prevent tick bites with these tips.

  • Understand where ticks live. They like tall grass, brush, leaf litter, or woods but can be found on mown lawns, in gardens, and on pets, too.
  • Pre-treat clothes, shoes, and other gear with the insecticide permethrin. Use a 0.5% solution. Treatments last through multiple washings; follow directions.
  • Use insect repellent on your body. Apply it after your sunscreen. Choose one that is Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered.

If you find a tick, remove it with tweezers. Antibiotics may be recommended by your healthcare provider to prevent Lyme disease if the tick is a black-legged tick AND has been attached for over 36 hours. See excellent visuals here.

Vaccine rollercoaster

Until recently, the COVID vaccine has been recommended for all Americans over the age of 6 months. However, new guidance may now make these vaccines harder to access for some people.

In addition, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, recently announced that he was removing all current members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the expert body that has advised the Centers for Disease Control since 1964. This surprising step will affect the development of evidence-based recommendations for all vaccines, not just those for COVID.

For a deeper dive into changing COVID vaccine recommendations, see this article.

Vaccine policy needs continual review and updating. However, these recent changes have upended the structured vaccine assessment and approval process that relies on the input of scientists and vaccine experts and provides transparency, accountability, and opportunity for public comment.

Your Local Epidemiologist

Source: Your Local Epidemiologist

What are the concerns?

Scientists, public health leaders (including Yale’s own Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health), and professional organizations have questioned the COVID vaccine changes on clinical grounds.

  • Pregnant people and their babies benefit from the vaccine by both reducing the parent’s hospitalization risk and passing antibodies to the infant, providing critical protection during the first 6 months of life. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology maintains its support for vaccination and emphasizes the vaccine’s safety and benefits to mothers and infants.
  • Children, including healthy ones, are at risk for severe COVID, as noted in this CDC study. Per the American Academy of Pediatrics, the weakened recommendation to require shared decision making is difficult to implement due to a lack of clear guidance on how such conversations should go. This may further reduce vaccine uptake in children who would benefit from it.

In summary, here’s what we know:

  • The COVID vaccine is still recommended for adults and children with conditions that put them at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 as well as all adults 65 or older. High-risk conditions are very common, affecting 74% of the population.
  • Healthy children may be vaccinated based on consultation with their healthcare provider. This verbiage is a change from the stronger “should” be vaccinated.
  • Pregnant people may also be vaccinated according to current published CDC schedules, so guidance has not changed—yet—despite announcements by the HHS secretary. Pregnancy remains on the list of conditions that increase the risk of severe COVID.

What remains unclear:

  • Whether the FDA and the CDC will further modify vaccine schedules for healthy adults.
  • Whether healthcare workers and others at high exposure risk will be eligible.

We will keep you updated. In the meantime, to be clear: there is overwhelming evidence that the COVID vaccine, and vaccines in general, are safe and effective. We highly recommend them.

Measles 

Measles continues to infect people across North America. In the U.S., the CDC reported 1,168 confirmed cases as of June 5, 2025; the death toll stands at 3. As of May 24, Mexico had logged 1,789 cases and Canada 2,755.

  • The outbreak in the Southwest has reached 913 cases but appears to be slowing. The disease may have “burned through” the susceptible population. See Yale School of Public Health’s update.
  • The 33 states with confirmed cases include New York and Rhode Island, though not Connecticut. Many cases and small outbreaks outside the Southwest are linked to international travel.
  • Some 96% of measles cases are in individuals who are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status. Only 4% have occurred in people with one or two doses of vaccine.
  • If you’re not fully vaccinated against measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) or you’re unsure of your status, learn more from our March message. Vaccination is especially important if you are traveling this summer.

Protect yourself from mis- and disinformation

We are surrounded by a sea of facts and fiction in what’s been called an infodemic, so we often encounter misinformation (errors) and disinformation (deliberate untruths). Bad information can hurt you if it leads you to try dangerous remedies or avoid lifesaving treatments.

But how can you know which information to trust? With media literacy. This set of skills empowers you to think critically about information so you can protect yourself from falsehoods and spot what’s likely to be true.

  • Start with questions. Analyze media with key questions like “How do my emotions influence my interpretation of this?” and “What is left out that might be important to know?” Here’s a one-page PDF from the National Association for Media Literacy Education.
  • Take a mini course. The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit that works to improve journalism, gathers media literacy resources at MediaWise. Options include a week-long message course and a video-based course covering fact-checking, searches, photo and video verification, deepfakes, and misinformation red flags.
  • Know your sources. Browse Media Bias/Fact Check. This nonprofit publishes reports on the bias and truthfulness of thousands of media outlets around the world. Check if a fishy story’s originator made their Questionable Sources list.
  • Debunk. When it’s time for a fact-check, the legendary fact-checkers at Snopes.com have often already done the work.
  • Prebunk. Prebunking means using a “weakened dose “of fake news to teach people to spot rubbish. Check out the video “Psychological Vaccine Against Fake News,” which introduces a study on prebunking.

On a personal note, I will be retiring at the end of July after 30 years at Yale. Helping Yale respond to the COVID pandemic and then serving as your Chief Campus Health Officer since 2023 has been the honor of a lifetime. I leave future updates and the Campus Health mission in the excellent hands of our dedicated and highly qualified Campus Health team.

Campus Health seeks to empower a vibrant Yale community that champions health and wellbeing and thrives in the face of public health challenges.

In health,

Madeline S. Wilson, MD, FACP
Chief Campus Health Officer