A person with a confirmed case of measles visited public spaces in Geauga and Lake counties, including a middle school, a college campus, a school choir concert, a Chardon restaurant, two businesses in Mentor and an urgent care clinic. Anyone who was at those locations during the listed exposure windows may have been exposed, and officials say symptoms could still surface through Nov. 28.
Geauga Public Health is reporting a confirmed case of measles with exposures to several public locations in Geauga and Lake counties, according to News 5 Cleveland. Health officials warned that the person visited Berkshire Middle School, Kent State University’s Geauga campus and other locations while contagious, and the alert covers anyone at the listed sites during that window, as reported by cleveland.com.
Where and When the Exposures Happened
At Berkshire Middle School on Claridon Troy Road in Burton, the exposure window ran approximately 7:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. each day from Nov. 2 through Nov. 5, according to the Geauga County Maple Leaf. The same building housed two other listed exposures: Kent State University’s Geauga campus, with a window of about 3:30 to 7 p.m. on Nov. 3, and the Berkshire Local Schools fall choir concert that evening, running roughly 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., the Maple Leaf reports.
The Hambone restaurant in Chardon was listed as a possible exposure site during dinner hours on Nov. 3 and again on Nov. 5, the outlet’s report notes. Two Mentor businesses were added to the list for Nov. 6: SPC Sports from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and LongHorn Steakhouse from approximately 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., per the same account. The final listed site was University Hospitals Urgent Care Concord, with a window of 5:54 to 8:48 p.m. on Nov. 7.
Each of those windows includes not just the time the contagious person was physically present but also the two hours afterward, since the virus can linger in the air, the Maple Leaf reported. Health officials urged anyone who was at those sites during the listed times and is unvaccinated or unsure of their immunity to contact a health care provider for guidance, cleveland.com reported.
Tracing Contacts and Watching for Symptoms
Geauga Public Health is working with the patient and their health care providers to identify contacts, and local health departments will notify those people directly and provide quarantine guidance, according to cleveland.com. Symptoms tied to the exposures could appear through Nov. 28 and may develop later in people with weakened immune systems, the outlet reported, and measles typically begins with high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes before a rash follows.
Anyone who develops symptoms should call ahead before seeking care in person so staff can take steps to protect others, per guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited by cleveland.com. Measles spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes and is considered highly contagious. Two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine are 97% effective at preventing the disease, Geauga Public Health said.
Part of a Broader Ohio Surge
This is not Geauga County’s first brush with measles this year. In August, Geauga Public Health reported five cases linked to an outbreak that also touched Ashtabula and Tuscarawas counties, and officials separately identified the July 18 Bloomfield Horse Sale as a possible exposure site, cleveland.com reported. Whether this latest case connects to that earlier outbreak was not specified in Wednesday’s release.
The new case lands amid a statewide spike. The Ohio Department of Health’s dashboard showed 310 cases across 25 counties as of Nov. 5, according to The Columbus Dispatch — nearly six times the 45 cases Ohio logged in all of 2025. The state did add 14 new cases in the week ending Nov. 5, a 61% drop from the 36 reported the week before, the Dispatch noted, and the vast majority of Ohio’s cases are among unvaccinated individuals, per the Ohio Department of Health.
Geauga County alone has recorded 54 measles cases in 2026, with Ashtabula County at 47, according to Ideastream Public Media, which reported that Ashtabula, Geauga and Wayne counties together account for roughly half of Ohio’s statewide total. Nationally, Johns Hopkins University data released Oct. 30 put the year’s measles count at 5,051 cases, the highest annual total since 1991, the Dispatch reported, while the CDC had confirmed 5,182 cases nationwide as of Nov. 5, per Ideastream.
Other recent Northeast Ohio exposure warnings illustrate how widely the virus has been circulating. Health officials flagged a possible exposure at SweetBerry Fresh Market in Wickliffe on Oct. 3, 5 or 6, according to Ideastream, though the Lake County General Health District said at the time there were no known measles cases in the county, per cleveland.com's Lake County coverage. Akron Children’s Hospital separately warned of a possible exposure at its Golisano Campus on Oct. 20, Ideastream reported. Ohio’s MMR vaccination coverage rate for children and adolescents stood at 91.5% in 2023, according to the Dispatch.
Geauga officials are working with Berkshire Local Schools and private-event organizers to notify families and other attendees who may have been at the listed sites, cleveland.com reported. Anyone unsure whether they were exposed or whether their vaccination status offers protection is being directed to reach out to a health care provider.
