The Washington Post reported at 2:21 this afternoon, Lena H. Sun and Rachel Roubein reporting, that CDC is expanding this outbreak from nine states to fifteen, adding six where illnesses have been traced to shredded iceberg lettuce from central Mexico.
Here are the fifteen, since nobody has put them in one place. The nine already on CDC’s outbreak page are Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The six the Post reports are being added are Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire and North Carolina.
And here is the number that ought to be the headline. Those fifteen states are reporting 21,393 cases of cyclosporiasis among themselves — 19,107 in the original nine and 2,286 in the six being added. The federal count for the same fifteen states is 1,947 that a linked both to Taylor Farms and Taco Bell. Whatever number CDC posts when it finally updates the page, hold it up against 21,393, because that is what the health departments of those fifteen states are already telling their own residents. However, how many above the 1,947 are linked to Taylor Farms and/or Taco Bell is still a guess.
| State | 2026 cases reported by the state | Added to the federal outbreak |
| The nine already on CDC’s outbreak page | ||
| Illinois | 532 | July 24 |
| Indiana | 1,349 | July 18 |
| Kansas | 461 | July 24 |
| Kentucky | 468 | July 14 |
| Michigan | 11,508 | July 14 |
| Ohio | 4,013 | July 14 |
| Oklahoma | 426 | July 24 |
| Pennsylvania | 82 | July 24 |
| West Virginia | 268 | July 14 |
| Those nine | 19,107 | |
| The six the Washington Post reports are being added | ||
| Arkansas | 123 | Reported Aug 4 |
| Iowa | 226 | Reported Aug 4 |
| Missouri | 1,095 | Reported Aug 4 |
| Nebraska | 91 | Reported Aug 4 |
| New Hampshire | 33 | Reported Aug 4 |
| North Carolina | 718 | Reported Aug 4 |
| Those six | 2,286 | |
| All fifteen | 21,393 | Federal count for these states: 1,947 |
A word on twenty-seven versus twenty-eight states where Taylor Farms’ recalled lettuce was sent, because both numbers are in circulation and each is right about something different. Taylor Farms’ recall notice, as published by FDA, says the recalled SHREDDED ICEBERG went to twenty-seven states between June 29 and July 16: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Separately, FDA’s own outbreak advisory lists the states where the recalled Marketside retail bags were sold at Walmart, and that list has fifteen states on it.
Lay the two lists on top of each other and the whole discrepancy is one state. Every Walmart state is inside the twenty-seven except West Virginia. Which resolves it: West Virginia received the recalled retail product and not the recalled foodservice product, so it belongs in any count of states that got recalled lettuce and does not belong on the company’s shredded-iceberg list. Twenty-seven plus West Virginia is twenty-eight, and that is the number in the chart below, because the chart column means any recalled product.
Nebraska is on neither list. Of the fifteen states now in this outbreak, West Virginia is missing from one distribution list, and Nebraska is missing from both. It is the only outbreak state for which no recalled product has been publicly documented as arriving at all. And fourteen states are in the recall footprint with no outbreak status of any kind. A recall footprint and an outbreak are two different maps, and nobody has ever shown the public how the edges of either one were drawn.
While I was finishing this, CDC updated its surveillance page, and it is the largest single jump of the outbreak. The page now reports 10,468 laboratory-confirmed domestically acquired cases since May 1, up from 6,707, and says it is aware of more than 12,255 additional cases that are not laboratory confirmed or require further analysis, up from 11,500. Add those together and CDC is now describing 22,723 people. The fifty state health departments are reporting 23,295. Those two numbers are 572 apart.
That morning they were 5,088 apart and I have spent three weeks writing about the distance between them. The federal count did not creep toward the state count. It leapt, by 3,761 laboratory-confirmed cases in a single update and landed within two and a half percent of the floor the states have been publishing all along. The states were right. They were right in the third week of July when the gap was ten thousand, and they are right tonight. Confirmation caught up. The illness was always there.
Two smaller things in that same update, both silent. The sentence describing the outbreak used to read that CDC was investigating one multistate outbreak affecting nine states linked to iceberg lettuce. Tonight it reads one multistate outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce, with the number of states taken out. And the line about which states are driving the unconfirmed cases used to say Michigan and Ohio; tonight it says Michigan alone. Neither edit was announced, and the outbreak investigation page still says nine states while the Post says fifteen.
On the federal injury numbers. CDC’s surveillance page had, as of its July 28 update, reported 6,707 laboratory-confirmed domestically acquired cases across forty-five states, more than 11,500 awaiting confirmation, and 423 hospitalizations. FDA’s advisory says ninety-eight. Thirteen states publish a hospitalization figure of their own and those thirteen come to 433.
| What is being counted | Hospitalizations | Deaths |
| FDA, nine-state lettuce outbreak (stamped July 24) | 98 | 0 |
| CDC national surveillance, through July 27 | 423 | 2 (acknowledged Aug 3) |
| The thirteen states that publish a figure | 433 | 2 (Michigan) |
Which brings me back to how you tell these outbreaks apart, because today changes one of the four answers and leaves three alone.
One. The Taco Bell cluster, FDA reference 1390. As the pages read tonight: 1,947 people across Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, onsets June 22 to July 20, at least ninety-eight hospitalized, a named supplier, a named product, and the season’s only recall. This is the box that is about to get six states bigger.
Two. New Hampshire. Thirty-three confirmed cases as of July 28 with two hospitalizations, in a state that sees between two and nine in a typical year. Seventeen are tied to recalled Taylor Farms lettuce and all seventeen to one location, and NH DHHS publishes the address: Cheshire Medical Center, 580 Court Street, Keene. Same recalled product, different establishment. If New Hampshire is not among the six being added, that is worth asking about, because it is the only state outside the nine with illness already tied in writing to the recalled product.
Three. Alabama. Twenty-eight cases as of July 20, two hospitalized, four travel-related, eight of them tied to two separate Mexican-style restaurant outbreaks that ADPH says in its own release are not Taco Bell. A category of establishment named, no product named, no link asserted to Taylor Farms.
Four. North Carolina, the largest and least resolved. NCDHHS reports 718 cases since May 1 with twenty-four hospitalizations, and its dashboard shows 728 for the calendar year against 306 in all of 2025, with 432 in Wake County. Parsley and cilantro reported more often than population surveys would predict, a commodity named and no supplier and no establishment, and a department that says plainly many cases ate neither. There is a line in FDA’s own records that belongs beside it: on the closed portion of the CORE outbreak tablesits reference 1325, posted August 2025, Cyclospora cayetanensis, parsley, sixty-nine cases, closed. Washington named parsley as a vehicle twelve months ago. North Carolina is reporting parsley now and no open federal investigation carries its name.
And the part nobody writes about. FDA’s CORE table carries six Cyclospora entries as of July 29. One is the lettuce outbreak. The other five read Not Yet Identified: ninety-three cases under reference 1392, ten under 1385, eighteen under 1384, two under 1381, eight under 1375. That is 131 people in five files where the government opened an investigation, ran a traceback and named nothing. 1,947 plus 131 is 2,078 — every Cyclospora illness this season attached to a numbered federal investigation, against 23,295 reported by the states. A file open on about nine percent of the illness, and a food named in one file out of six.
Where each state stands tonight, with the source for every number. Michigan is the only row that changed today.
| State | 2026 cases reported | Recalled lettuce | Where the number comes from |
| Alabama | 28 (Jul 20); 2 hosp.; 8 tied to two restaurant clusters | Yes | ADPH news release |
| Alaska | 5 (Jul 16) | No | Alaska DOH advisory |
| Arizona | 19 (Jul 17) | No | AZ DHS, via roundup |
| Arkansas | 123 (Jul 30); 75 in Benton County | Yes | ADH via KNWA |
| California | 41 provisional (Jul 14) | No | CDPH NR26-024 |
| Colorado | 150 (Jul 17); 4 hosp. | No | CDPHE, via roundup |
| Connecticut | 35 | Yes | CT DPH press release |
| Delaware | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| Florida | 254 since May 1 (Jul 25); 264 calendar year | Yes | FDOH via News4Jax |
| Georgia | 11-30 since May 1 (Jul 17) | Yes | GA DPH, via roundup |
| Hawaii | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| Idaho | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| Illinois | 532 (Jul 29); 23 hosp. (Jul 16) | Yes | CNN tracker |
| Indiana | 1,349 (Aug 3); Allen County 290, Marion 108 | Yes | IDOH via WRTV / WISH-TV |
| Iowa | 226 in 48 counties (Jul 30); 47 travel-related | Yes | Iowa HHS weekly report |
| Kansas | 461 (Jul 29); 20 hosp. | Yes | CNN tracker / KDHE |
| Kentucky | 468 (Jul 29); 7 hosp. (Jul 20) | Yes | CNN tracker |
| Louisiana | 1-10 (Jul 17) | Yes | LA DOH, via roundup |
| Maine | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| Maryland | 69 (Jul 17) | Yes | MD DOH, via roundup |
| Massachusetts | 18 (Jul 17) | Yes | MA DPH, via roundup |
| Michigan | 11,508 (Aug 4); 193 hosp. (Jul 30); 2 deaths | Yes | MDHHS / CBS Detroit |
| Minnesota | 41 since May 1 (Jul 17) | No | MDH, via roundup |
| Mississippi | No count published | Yes | FDA distribution list |
| Missouri | 1,095 (Aug 2); doubled in one week; 90 in Boone County | Yes | DHSS via KCTV5 / STLPR |
| Montana | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| Nebraska | 91 since May (Jul 20); Douglas County alone 45 (Jul 28) | No | DHHS via Nebraska Examiner / WOWT |
| Nevada | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| New Hampshire | 33 confirmed (Jul 28); 2 hosp.; 17 tied to recalled lettuce at Cheshire Medical Center | Yes | NH DHHS / NHPR |
| New Jersey | 46 (May 1-Jul 11) | Yes | NJDOH news release |
| New Mexico | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| New York | 753 since May 1 (Jul 27 data); 787 calendar year | No | NYSDOH |
| North Carolina | 718 since May 1 (Jul 27 data); 24 hosp.; 728 calendar year; 432 in Wake County | Yes | NCDHHS / dashboard |
| North Dakota | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| Ohio | 4,013 in 80 counties (Jul 31); 96 hosp. (Jul 17); ODH puts Lucas Co. at 554, the county health dept. at 1,218 (Aug 3) | Yes | ODH via WOSU / Toledo Blade |
| Oklahoma | 426 (Aug 4); 418 confirmed, 8 probable; 25 hosp. | Yes | OSDH via KSWO / KOKH |
| Oregon | 23 in 2026 (Jul 24) | No | Oregon Health Authority |
| Pennsylvania | 82 (Jul 29); reported voluntarily | Yes | CNN tracker |
| Rhode Island | 4 since May 1 (Jul 17) | No | RI DOH, via roundup |
| South Carolina | No count published | Yes | FDA distribution list |
| South Dakota | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| Tennessee | 11-30 (Jul 17) | Yes | TN DOH, via roundup |
| Texas | 68 (Jul 13); 15 hosp. | Yes | Texas DSHS |
| Utah | 1-10 (Jul 17) | No | UT DHHS, via roundup |
| Vermont | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| Virginia | 126 total (Jul 23); 66 domestic, 31 travel, 29 pending | Yes | Virginia DH |
| Washington | 38 (May 1-Jul 17) | No | Washington DOH |
| West Virginia | 268 (Jul 31); 19 hosp. | Yes | WV OEPS |
| Wisconsin | 160 (Jul 29); 3 hosp.; 50 domestically acquired | Yes | Wisconsin DHS |
| Wyoming | No count published | No | CDC surveillance |
| Nine outbreak states | 19,107 | 9 | |
| Received the recalled lettuce | 22,129 | 28 | |
| Did not receive it | 1,166 | 22 | |
| All fifty states | 23,295 | 50 |
Thirteen states in that table publish no count at all. Eleven more trace to a national roundup last refreshed July 17, and several of those are bands rather than counts — Georgia and Tennessee published as eleven to thirty, Louisiana and Utah as one to ten. I use the bottom of every band, which is one of several reasons the total is a floor.
Twenty-seven days remain in the season CDC defines as May 1 through August 31. Tonight the outbreak is fifteen states according to a newspaper, nine states according to the government, and 23,295 cases according to the fifty health departments doing the counting. And the company at the center of it will not say how much lettuce it recalled, or where the lettuce went in the weeks before the recall window it drew for itself.