People who visited the Kaiser Permanente Mt. Scott Medical Office in Clackamas last Thursday afternoon may have been exposed to measles, according to the Oregon Health Authority. The agency says anyone at the clinic between 1:35 p.m. and 3:44 p.m. last Thursday could have encountered the virus, making it the latest site in a string of Portland-area exposure alerts this year.
The clinic sits at 9800 Southeast Sunnyside Road in Clackamas County, according to KGW, which reported that state and county health officials identified the site after an infected patient spent more than two hours there. As The Oregonian/OregonLive reports, the Oregon Health Authority has flagged this Kaiser Permanente location as the latest confirmed exposure point in the Portland metro area, with other recent risk areas including Clark County, Beaverton, Gresham and parts of Portland itself.
Measles spreads through coughs and sneezes, and the virus can remain infectious in the air of an enclosed space for up to two hours after an infected person leaves, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms typically appear seven to 21 days after exposure and can include fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes, per the same account, sometimes followed by a rash of flat red spots that begins on the face and spreads across the body. Oregon Health Authority guidelines note that infected individuals become contagious four days before the rash appears and remain contagious for four days after it shows up, which helps explain how the virus can spread in a waiting room before anyone realizes they are sick.
A Pattern Stretching Back to January
This is not the first time a Kaiser Permanente facility in Clackamas County has landed on the exposure list this year. Clackamas County confirmed its first measles case of 2026 in mid-January, which triggered a potential exposure alert at the Kaiser Permanente Sunnyside Medical Center emergency department on January 26, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. Health officials at the time noted that most confirmed local cases involved unvaccinated residents without international travel history.
Less than a month before Thursday's alert, three Providence Health facilities — Providence Immediate Care in Happy Valley, Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center in Oregon City, and Providence Portland Medical Center — were flagged as exposure sites between July 9 and July 12, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. Urgent care centers and emergency departments have repeatedly become exposure points this year when infected patients arrive without calling ahead, a pattern Hoodline has tracked through incidents from a midnight ER scare in Oregon City to a Beaverton trampoline park scare last month.
Why Oregon Keeps Seeing New Exposure Sites
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 2,465 confirmed measles cases across 47 U.S. jurisdictions as of Thursday, making 2026 the worst year for measles nationally in more than three decades since the disease was declared eliminated in the country in 2000. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that Oregon itself has recorded 40 measles cases this year, according to CDC figures.
Falling vaccination rates help explain why the Portland area keeps generating new exposure sites. The Oregon Health Authority reported in May that nonmedical vaccine exemptions among Oregon kindergarteners hit a record 10.9% for the 2025–2026 school year, up from 6.9% just a few years earlier, with exemptions for the second MMR dose reaching 9.4%. Separately, state immunization data showed only 85.6% of Oregon kindergarteners were up to date on required vaccines that same year, leaving more than a third of the state's K-12 schools below the 93% threshold that epidemiologists say is needed for herd immunity, according to The Lund Report.
To catch spread that clinical testing might miss, the Oregon Health Authority launched a statewide wastewater surveillance dashboard in February that tracks measles virus concentrations in sewage across the state's counties, since infected people shed the virus whether or not they seek medical care. Hoodline previously covered the launch of that quiet wastewater alarm system.
What To Do If You Were Exposed
Measles has been largely non-fatal in countries where the vaccine is available, but it can be more dangerous for children, older adults and immunocompromised people, per The Oregonian/OregonLive. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are 97% effective at preventing measles, and the Oregon Health Authority recommends vaccination to lower infection risk. The CDC notes that susceptible people exposed to measles can still receive an MMR vaccine within 72 hours of exposure to prevent or lessen illness, or immune globulin within six days for high-risk patients such as infants, pregnant women or immunocompromised individuals.
The Oregon Health Authority is urging anyone experiencing measles symptoms, including a rash or runny nose, to call ahead before visiting a medical facility rather than walking into a waiting room. Calling ahead helps prevent exposing other patients who may not be immune, health officials say, a message that has repeated through nearly every exposure alert issued across the Portland metro area this year.
