'Fighting to breathe': Whooping cough surges as vaccination rates drop

The spread of whooping cough has been increasing since the early 2000s. But in 2025, there have been more than 8,000 cases of pertussis, more than twice as 2024.

Kate and Greg Moor weren’t thinking “whooping cough” when their son, 13-year-old Joe, started having coughing fits in early March.

Joe probably just had a late winter virus, the Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, couple figured. Maybe it was spring allergies. Other than the coughing, he seemed fine.

Cough medicine didn’t touch Joe’s brutal and increasingly frequent coughing jags — sometimes every five to 10 minutes for hours at a time.

“It was a very violent cough. I just had to pause what I was doing and wait until I was done coughing,” Joe said. “Sometimes it felt like I’d throw up.”

Joe Moor, 13, in Chicago with his brothers in late March, experienced uncontrollable coughing fits because of whooping cough.Courtesy Moor family It was difficult to watch Joe’s body convulse uncontrollably, said his mom, Kate. “Nothing seemed to be working,” she said. “It just seemed really aggressive. He’d double over.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/whooping-cough-surges-vaccines-decline-us-rcna201853

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