If you compare the 2019-20 to the 2023-2003 school year, you would see that the national kindergarten coverage with state-required vaccinations dropped from 95% to approximately 93%.
Exemptions increased in 41 jurisdictions, with 14 reporting that more than 5% of kindergarten-aged children had an exemption from one or more vaccine, according to a new report from the CDC.
Meanwhile, the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine coverage rate has dropped below 95% in D.C. and Virginia. It did not fall in Maryland.
The District fell below D.C. the 95% coverage rate in diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis vaccines, and Virginia joined D.C. in falling below the coverage rate in polio. The news is of major concern to health professionals like Dr. Gabrina Dixon, a pediatrician with Children’s National Hospital in D.C.
“When you have these high vaccination rates … when everyone who is able to get vaccinated gets vaccinated, it also protects those people that are not able to get vaccinated. Let’s say you may be too young for a vaccine, or you have a certain illness where you can’t get certain vaccines at a certain time. Those people are protected because we have this maximum vaccination rate,” Dixon said.
The doctor wants anyone with questions about vaccines to turn to a trusted medical provider instead of social media.
“There’s so much misinformation on social media, on outlets about vaccines,” Dixon said. “Talk to who can provide you with the information that you need, who could give you resources … that are reliable.”
Dixon expressed her concern about the risk of children contracting illnesses and diseases that are otherwise vaccine preventable.
“We see measles outbreaks when we see lower vaccination rates,” Dixon said. “You can die for some of these things. … We don’t want them being extremely sick, and we don’t want them dying from it.”
