This paper has been printing U.S. measles ledgers as unmerged through the catch-up week. Monday has no merged CDC book in fetched copy. Unmerged is not gone. A quiet health desk is not a closed outbreak.

Print unmerged. Do not print cleared. Leave a national number to the edition that owns a national number.

No merged national measles book is in Monday's CDC copy, so unmerged remains the ledger word.
Unmerged ledgers are still unmerged. Monday recap that treats measles as gone is a feed, not a CDC merge.
No merged measles book is in Monday's health copy.
Monday is not a CDC merge.
No Monday measles merge is in the stack.
An unmerged measles ledger remains unmerged; Monday closed no outbreak.
County health departments report cases while the CDC reconciles deaths, and the two clocks rarely agree mid-outbreak. Until both books match, this paper prints both numbers side by side.

Side-by-side numbers hold; Monday holds both. Holding both is honest. Merges wait on offices.

Offices merge later; Monday prints cases and deaths side by side. County clocks and CDC clocks rarely agree. No outbreak closed.

County desks still file cases on their own clocks. The CDC still reconciles deaths on another. Until those books match, this paper will not invent a national total. An outbreak that looks quiet in Washington can still be open in a county ledger.
States still file cases on their own clocks. The CDC still reconciles deaths on another. This paper will not invent a national total.

The CDC still reconciles deaths on another. Monday will not invent a national total. Monday will not invent a national measles total.

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago