Whooping cough, a highly transmissible infection of the lungs and airways that mostly affects babies and young children, is on the rise in the United States.
Also called pertussis, the condition gets its common name from a distinctive high-pitched, gasping intake of air that commonly follows a severe coughing fit. An audio recording posted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) illustrates just how miserable the cough can be.
In 2021, when people were social distancing and in lockdown during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were barely 2,000 reported cases of whooping cough.
An Alarming Rise in First Few Months of 2025
Why Is Whooping Cough Coming Back?
Stephen Aronoff, MD, a professor of pediatrics who specializes in infectious diseases at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia, suggests that the increase in infections is still due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic, when a significant number of children were not immunized.
“There were years where we simply were unable to adequately vaccinate children, and as a result, we now have a whole population of kids who may be under-vaccinated,” says Dr. Aronoff. “You also have pockets in communities where you have under-vaccination for one reason or another, whether it’s religious beliefs, distrust of vaccines, or something else.”
During the peak years of coronavirus spread, people were also isolating, wearing masks, social distancing, and following vigorous hygiene practices.
“We certainly saw traditional respiratory viruses in kids basically disappear in 2021 and 2022, and it wasn’t until everything got back to normal that we started to see resurgences of those viruses,” says Aronoff.
Also, since the protection provided by whooping cough vaccination decreases over time, the CDC expects to see whooping cough cases rise in both unvaccinated and vaccinated people.
Vaccination Provides the Best Protection Against Whooping Cough
Despite the waning power of vaccination, Alex Sette, a doctor of biological sciences and a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California, underscores that these shots continue to offer the best defense against whooping cough.
“There is a lot of concern in the medical scientific community about misinformation and the whole polarization associated with vaccine acceptance,” says Dr. Sette. “People may not be as diligent in providing childhood vaccination to their children, which is very concerning because if more people are not properly vaccinated, that is potentially a leading factor in the increased circulation of pertussis.”
The CDC stresses that vaccination is the best way to protect against pertussis and its complications. DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) vaccination is recommended at 2, 4, and 6 months; at 15 through 18 months; and at 4 through 6 years.
Stanford Children’s Health cautions that older adults, such as grandparents, who have been in close contact with a child with whooping cough are at extra risk if they have not had a Tdap booster.
To best protect newborns against whooping cough, the CDC urges pregnant people to get the Tdap vaccination during their third trimester.
“By vaccinating the pregnant mother-to-be, you boost her level of antibodies and that passes on and protects the child in the first few months when it’s most vulnerable,” says Sette.
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