On an unusually crisp April day in a rural Texas town, dozens of Mennonite community members gathered alongside the nation's top health official, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to mourn an eight-year-old.
Daisy Hildebrand is the second unvaccinated girl from the community to die from measles within two months.
Officials in Seminole town also joined the reception after her funeral to support the family, said South Plains Public Health Director Zach Holbrooks. This time, there was no talk of the vaccine that prevents measles deaths - unlike many of his long days since the outbreak began.
"The focus was on their healing," Mr Holbrooks said. "You never want to see anybody pass away, especially a child that young, from any kind of illness, because there is a prevention for it - the MMR vaccine."
Like other Seminole natives, Mr Holbrooks was not vaccinated against measles as a child. He got a shot in college, and another in February, when his hometown became the epicentre of one of the country's worst measles outbreaks in a decade.
The US has seen more than 700 cases this year. The majority of infections - 541 as of Friday - occurred in western Texas, with 56 patients sent to the hospital. Cases in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas also are linked to the outbreak. Two children, including Daisy, have died - the first recorded fatalities from measles in the US since 2015.
It's not slowing down either, public health experts say. They try to reach vaccine-hesitant residents, but struggle with those who carry on with daily life as usual and with mixed messaging from federal officials, including Kennedy who has endorsed immunization conspiracy theories in the past.
"I wish there were more coming in to get the vaccine," Mr Holbrooks said. "We can put messaging out, but it's up to them to come see us."
The western Texas town of Seminole - population 7,000 - is bordered by miles of rural farmland and oil fields.
Among billboards for restaurants, gun silencers and tractors, a digital sign hints at the crisis gripping the community: a warning about the dangers of measles, which can cause complications including pneumonia, brain swelling and death.
It has spread rapidly among Mennonites, a religious community living near Seminole. Mr Holbrooks estimates the population could be as many as 40,000 across several counties. In those areas, public school vaccination rates are as low as 82%.
Roughly 95% of a community must be vaccinated against the measles to achieve herd immunity, when enough of a group is immune to a disease that its spread is limited and the unvaccinated are protected.
Mr Holbrooks remembers when the Low German Mennonite group began immigrating to his hometown and nearby states in the 1970s. The religion has no specific doctrines against vaccinations, but they tend to avoid many modern aspects of life, including the health care system.
Their community is not alone. At least 118,000 kindergartners in Texas are exempt from one or more vaccines, mostly in rural areas, said Terri Burke, director of Texas vaccine advocacy group, the Immunization Partnership. Parents can get a waiver to exempt their child from school vaccine requirements for a variety of reasons, including religion.
Savannah Knelsen, an 18-year-old server at a Seminole barbecue restaurant, has not been vaccinated against measles - or anything else.
Many of her family members and friends - also unvaccinated - caught the measles in recent weeks. One relative developed a fever of 104.5 F (40.2 C), but still chose not to go to the hospital.
The recent deaths of two children have not convinced her to get vaccinated, she said, adding that she was healthy and wanted to let her body "fight off" infections. Experts agree the vaccine is the best way to prevent infections - including severe ones.
Ms Knelsen's 19-year-old co-worker, Jessica Giesbrecht, along with her family, has been vaccinated against the measles.
"I'm worried for my baby niece," Ms Giesbrecht said, adding she was too young to be vaccinated.
Still, the two said the outbreak doesn't weigh heavily on daily life. Others in Seminole agree.
A cashier at a local pharmacy said no one has stopped by for measles vaccinations since the outbreak started. "People are just going about their lives," she said.
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