By the Numbers: How Bad Is It?
A few numbers that show this isn't some small problem you only worry about on a camping trip.
Around 31 million Americans get bit by a tick every year, that's the CDC number cited in the May 2026 HHS announcement. Most of those bites don't lead to anything. But even a small percentage of that many bites turning into actual sickness adds up to a lot of sick people.
Around 476,000 people get treated for Lyme disease in the US every year, which makes it the most common tick-borne illness by a wide margin. This comes from CDC treatment numbers, not just reported cases, and it's been climbing steadily for decades.
Tick-borne illness has more than doubled since the year 2000. The CDC's been tracking a steady climb, and it comes down to ticks spreading into new territory, more deer and rodents around, and milder winters that keep ticks active longer into the year.
Roughly 450,000 Americans are thought to have alpha-gal syndrome, the meat allergy that comes from a lone star tick bite. A lot of researchers think that number's too low. See the alpha-gal page for the full story, including why my own family knows this one firsthand.
Back in April 2025, the CDC said weekly ER visits for tick bites hit their highest point since 2017 across most of the country. The Northeast in particular hit 231 tick-bite ER visits per 100,000 visits that June, the highest of any region. 2025 was one of the worst tick years we've had on record.