April 22, 2022 – The vaccination rate among children in kindergartens fell to about 94% in the 2020-21 school year, down about 1% from the previous school year, the CDC said on Thursday.
Nationally, 93.9% of children received two doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR); 93.6% received the required number of doses of diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP) from the state; and 93.6% received the state-required chickenpox vaccine, the CDC said. The release rate remains low at 2.2%.
“Compared to the 2019-20 school year, vaccination coverage has decreased by approximately one percentage point for all vaccines,” the CDC said.
The reduction in vaccinations happened because COVID-19 disrupted American life, the CDC said. Enrollment in schools and kindergartens declined, some schools did not report data to state immunization programs, and some parents delayed or missed kindergartens and routine visits to babies.
“Today’s findings support previous data showing an alarming decline in childhood immunizations that began in March 2020,” said Shannon Stockley, Ph.D., deputy director of CDC’s immunization services, according to CNN.
“We are concerned that missed routine vaccines may make children vulnerable to preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough, which are highly contagious and can be very serious, especially for babies and young children.
The level of vaccination varies from country to country. The New York Times notes that Maryland has a 10% drop in MMR vaccine coverage, while Wisconsin, Georgia, Wyoming and Kentucky have had a drop of about 5%. Idaho had 86.5% MMR coverage for the 2020-21 school year, among the lowest levels.
Distrust of COVID vaccines has also affected parents’ feelings about children’s vaccines, a health expert said.
“There are most parents who question routine vaccines,” Jason W. Turk, a Texas pediatrician who also serves as a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the Times. He said the misinformation “fuels the fire of mistrust and skepticism, which is really something like a new pandemic of hesitation about routine vaccines.”
The CDC said schools and immunization programs can fill the vaccination gap with programs to access unvaccinated kindergartens and first graders.
“Schools and immunization programs can increase the follow-up of under-vaccinated students to reduce the impact of COVID-19-related interruptions on vaccination coverage to protect students on their return to personal learning,” it said.
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