The federal Cyclospora outbreak linked to Taylor Farms de Mexico iceberg lettuce stands today where it stood a week ago: 11,458 laboratory-confirmed illnesses, at least 495 hospitalizations and two deaths across twenty states, with onsets from June 14 through August 15, on CDC and FDA pages last updated August 27, 2026. What moved this week was the national count. CDC’s case-data page, updated September 1 with data through the August 31 close of the cyclosporiasis season, now reports 18,445 laboratory-confirmed illnesses acquired in this country since May 1, 990 hospitalizations, two deaths and cases in forty-nine states plus the District of Columbia, against 1,180 for the whole of last season. The last onset date CDC lists is August 22. And the fifty state health departments, adding up what each has been willing to publish, now report 33,235 cases this season.
Cyclosporiasis is the intestinal illness caused by Cyclospora cayetanensis, a microscopic parasite that reaches produce when human waste reaches a field or the water that irrigates it, and that washing does not reliably remove. Two people are dead in Michigan.
The season ended, and the national count rose by 1,265 in a week.
When I wrote last Thursday, the national series stood at 17,180 confirmed and 922 hospitalizations. The move to 18,445 and 990 is 1,265 more people and 68 more hospital stays, all of it lag and almost none of it new illness: fifteen onsets in the entire outbreak fall in August, and the peak onset day was July 10. CDC also restructured its pending pile. It now lists 3,491 laboratory-confirmed cases still being sorted into domestic or travel-acquired, plus at least 13,505 more that are not laboratory confirmed or are waiting on an interview. Last week those were one figure, 11,844, so the two are not directly comparable and I am not going to pretend they are. Travel-associated cases, counted separately, are 1,900. CDC says it expects to keep adding cases for about six weeks past the season’s end.
Do the subtraction and the unattributed pile is now 6,987.
18,445 confirmed nationally, 11,458 in the outbreak. That leaves 6,987 confirmed illnesses this summer that CDC has not tied to the recalled lettuce or to anything else, up from 5,722 a week ago. The hospitalizations now split exactly down the middle: 495 in the outbreak, 495 outside it. Inside the outbreak about four in a hundred were hospitalized. Outside it, about seven. The same caveat as last week applies, the two pulls are four days apart and states capture hospitalization differently, so this is a question rather than a finding. It is a question that has now survived two weeks of new data.
The fifty-state count is 33,235, and five rows moved because I had fallen behind the states.
The fifty state health departments now report 33,235 cases of cyclosporiasis this season, up 378 from the 32,857 I published yesterday. None of the five rows that moved is a new posting; all five are numbers the states had already put on the record that my chart was carrying low. Kentucky goes from 620 to 819 reported cases as of August 12, 502 of them laboratory-confirmed. Pennsylvania goes from 82 to 214 confirmed as of August 11, with six probable I do not count. Tennessee goes from 11 to 44, the figure in the state’s own July 16 health advisory. Oklahoma goes from 544 to 556 as of August 25, with 38 hospitalized. Massachusetts goes from 145 to 147. Those corrections are mine to own.
Here is where all fifty states stand, with CDC’s number beside each one.
CDC published exact per-state attribution for the first time on August 27, in the data table behind its outbreak map. That is the new column. It shows how many of each state’s illnesses the federal outbreak actually ties to the recalled lettuce, and it sums to 11,458. The Lettuce column is whether FDA has confirmed the recalled product reached that state; the last column is whether anybody has tied the state’s illnesses to Taylor Farms at all. Every count is a floor.
| State | 2026 cases | As of | CDC Aug 27 | All of 2025 | Lettuce | Taylor Farms |
| Michigan | 14,510 | Aug 27 | 4,846 | 50 | Yes | Linked |
| Ohio | 5,452 | Aug 13 | 2,679 | 76 | Yes | Linked |
| Missouri | 2,152 | Aug 23 | 1,010 | none reported | Yes | Linked |
| Indiana | 2,090 | Aug 26 | 823 | 27 | Yes | Linked |
| Illinois | 1,437 | Aug 18 | 278 | 301 | Yes | Linked |
| North Carolina | 940 | Aug 26 | 2 | 300 | Yes | Linked |
| New York | 939 | Aug 17 | 0 | 694 | Yes | Unknown |
| Kansas | 829 | Aug 26 | 331 | 29 | Yes | Linked |
| Kentucky | 819 | Aug 12 | 329 | 45 | Yes | Linked |
| Oklahoma | 556 | Aug 25 | 241 | 41 | Yes | Linked |
| Florida | 450 | Aug 15 | 0 | 210 | Yes | Unknown |
| Iowa | 327 | Aug 20 | 130 | 64 | Yes | Linked |
| Texas | 315 | Aug 11 | 20 | 512 | Yes | Linked |
| West Virginia | 315 | Aug 28 | 160 | 8 | Yes | Linked |
| Arkansas | 287 | Aug 25 | 82 | 13 | Yes | Linked |
| Virginia | 234 | Aug 24 | 0 | 115 | Yes | Unknown |
| Nebraska | 218 | Aug 6 | 199 | 51 | Yes | Linked |
| Wisconsin | 216 | Aug 5 | 0 | 65 | Yes | Unknown |
| Pennsylvania | 214 | Aug 11 | 244 | not notifiable | Yes | Linked |
| Colorado | 150 | Jul 17 | 0 | 205 | No | Unknown |
| Massachusetts | 147 | Aug 5 | 18 | 74 | Yes | Linked |
| New Hampshire | 94 | Aug 25 | 42 | 7 | Yes | Linked |
| Alabama | 85 | Aug 3 | 0 | 19 | Yes | Unknown |
| Washington | 76 | Aug 28 | 0 | not available | May have | Travel link |
| Maryland | 69 | Jul 17 | 0 | 123 | Yes | No link found |
| New Jersey | 46 | Jul 11 | 0 | 180 | Yes | Unknown |
| Tennessee | 44 | Jul 16 | 5 | 38 | Yes | Linked |
| California | 41 | Jul 14 | 0 | not available | May have | Unknown |
| Minnesota | 41 | Jul 17 | 0 | none reported | No | Unknown |
| Connecticut | 35 | Jul 17 | 0 | 41 | Yes | Unknown |
| Maine | 27 | Aug 7 | 16 | 4 | Yes | Linked |
| Oregon | 23 | Jul 24 | 0 | not available | No | Travel link |
| Arizona | 19 | Jul 17 | 0 | 49 | No | Unknown |
| Georgia | 11 | Jul 17 | 3 | 116 | Yes | Linked |
| Mississippi | 7 | Jul 22 | 0 | not notifiable | Yes | Unknown |
| Hawaii | 6 | Aug 26 | 0 | not available | No | No link found |
| Alaska | 5 | Jul 16 | 0 | 6 | No | Unknown |
| Rhode Island | 4 | Jul 17 | 0 | 6 | May have | No link found |
| South Dakota | 3 | Jul 16 | 0 | 3 | May have | Unknown |
| Louisiana | 1 | Jul 17 | 0 | 99 | Yes | Unknown |
| Utah | 1 | Jul 17 | 0 | 37 | No | No link found |
| Delaware | no count published | — | 0 | 1 | May have | Unknown |
| Idaho | no count published | — | 0 | not notifiable | No | Unknown |
| Montana | no count published | — | 0 | 8 | No | Unknown |
| Nevada | no count published | — | 0 | not notifiable | No | Unknown |
| New Mexico | no count published | — | 0 | 9 | No | No link found |
| North Dakota | no count published | — | 0 | 4 | May have | Unknown |
| South Carolina | no count published | — | 0 | 45 | Yes | Unknown |
| Vermont | no count published | — | 0 | 3 | May have | Unknown |
| Wyoming | no count published | — | 0 | 0 | No | Unknown |
| All fifty states | 33,235 | 11,458 | 31 | 20 |
Counts as published by each state health department or as reported from it by a named outlet, compiled from the linked sources on September 2, 2026, with the as-of date shown. Forty-one states publish a 2026 count and those sum to 33,235; nine publish none. CDC attribution is from the outbreak map data table of August 27, 2026, and sums to 11,458 across twenty states; a zero means CDC assigns that state no illness in the outbreak, not that it has none. The two series are built differently: CDC counts laboratory-confirmed illness tied to the lettuce by interview; states count every case reported in their window, some including probable cases, and Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas and Kentucky on a calendar-year basis. Florida is shown on its May 1 series. Hawaii’s six include one investigated as locally acquired.
Thirty-three thousand counted by the states. Eleven and a half thousand attributed by CDC. Roughly one illness in three. The series are different and I will say so every time, but three things in that table do not depend on the caveat.
North Carolina has 940 cases, and two of them are in the federal outbreak.
North Carolina’s dashboard showed 940 cases and 32 hospitalizations as of August 26, and the state says its source remains unknown. CDC puts two North Carolinians in the lettuce outbreak. In July the state said its cases did not appear to be associated with the Taco Bell outbreak and that its interviews pointed at parsley, cilantro and lettuce. Texas is the same story on a smaller scale: 315 cases and 52 hospitalizations, the state telling reporters no Texas case was linked to the outbreak, and then CDC assigning twenty. Somebody’s interviews reached a conclusion somebody else’s did not, and nobody has explained the difference.
In Pennsylvania the federal number is bigger than the state’s.
Pennsylvania reported 214 confirmed and six probable cases as of August 11. CDC attributes 244 Pennsylvanians to the outbreak, more than the state has counted at all. Pennsylvania is the state where cyclosporiasis reporting is voluntary; CDC says so on its own page. And CDC counts people in the state where they were exposed rather than where they live. Either explanation is defensible. Neither has been offered.
Michigan’s own count is still three times its federal share.
14,510 cases and 356 hospitalizations as of August 27, against 4,846 in the outbreak. Michigan moved 233 in a week, its smallest week yet, and its next Thursday number lands tomorrow. Ohio has not published a new statewide figure since 5,452 on August 13; northwest Ohio alone stood at 3,401 on August 28, and the Toledo Blade’s word for the new cases was dwindle. Every state that posted a weekly change posted a small one: Missouri 202, Kansas 22, Oklahoma 12, North Carolina 11, Arkansas 10.
Eleven states received the lettuce and have no illness attributed to it.
Thirty-one states are on FDA’s confirmed distribution list. Twenty are in the federal outbreak. The eleven that got the product and appear nowhere in the attribution are Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin. The ten of those that publish a count report 2,082 cases between them this season, 939 of them in New York alone, and South Carolina publishes nothing. Nobody has published a reason to think none of those people ate the lettuce.
Michigan’s epidemiologists have now written the first month up.
NEJM Evidence and CIDRAP published an interim report from MDHHS, CDC and the University of Michigantoday: 6,065 cases from 69 of Michigan’s 83 counties between June 22 and July 22. The timeline in it is the one I have been asking for since July. MDHHS notified CDC of the rise on June 25. It warned the public on July 1, and named lettuce as a possible source on July 13. CDC’s Health Alert Network notice went out on July 14 and did not mention lettuce. FDA named Taylor Farms within the week. Michigan found the signal, called Atlanta and warned its own residents inside six days. The federal alert came nineteen days after that call and named no food.
Three questions I am getting this week.
Is the Cyclospora outbreak over?
The exposure ended in the middle of July and fifteen onsets in the outbreak fall in August. The investigation is open, both agencies still describe it as ongoing, and CDC says the counting will run about six weeks past the August 31 close of the season.
Will CDC’s outbreak number change?
Its cadence all summer has been Thursdays. Expect it tomorrow, along with Michigan’s.
What do the state gaps mean?
That the federal number describes who was interviewed and matched to the lettuce. It has never described who got sick.
The counting outlasted the season and it will outlast the investigation. The lot-level traceability records that would have let anyone walk this lettuce back to a field in days rather than weeks are not required until July 2028. Two people are dead, 990 people have been hospitalized, the states that were willing to print a number printed 33,235 of them, and nearly seven thousand confirmed illnesses this summer have no attributed source at all.