PHILADELPHIA – Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is a vaccination-preventable illness that has been on the rise in the United States. Following a several-year lull during the pandemic, cases of whooping cough rose sixfold in 2024 and remain high. As of Dec. 6, data show more than 26,600 U.S. cases reported this year, fewer than in the comparable period in 2024 but over four times higher than for all of 2023, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC reports that "preliminary case report numbers [of pertussis] remain elevated in 2025 compared to immediately before the pandemic." In some states, one must go back decades to find cases of whooping cough as high as those documented since 2020. The 1,475 cases in Oregon as of Dec. 10 surpassed "the previous annual record of 1,420 cases set in 1950," according to The Oregonian. Kentucky, which had not registered any infant whooping cough deaths since 2018, experienced its third this year, according to Kentucky officials and cited by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), at the University of Minnesota.
As cases rise, a nationally representative panel survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania finds that many in the public remain unfamiliar with symptoms of the disease. Almost a third of respondents (30%) are not sure whether pertussis is the same as whooping cough (it is) and more than a third (35%) are not sure whether a vaccine exists to prevent it (it does). Both findings, from a survey of 1,637 U.S. adults conducted Nov. 17-Dec. 1, 2025, are statistically unchanged from an APPC survey on whooping cough a year earlier, in November 2024.
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