Kindergarten Vaccine Exemptions Soar to New High

More children started kindergarten last year without having first received recommended vaccines for highly contagious and dangerous diseases, moving the nation even further away from vaccination rates experts say are needed for herd immunity.

The trend is driven in large part by parents filling out exemption forms that show they have opted their children out of the shots that are recommended by the nation’s pediatricians.

For the 3rd straight year, kindergarten vaccination rates declined, new CDC data show. Just over 92% of kindergartners are estimated to have received two important vaccines, known as DTaP and MMR, which when combined protect against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, and rubella. The vaccination rate before the pandemic was 95%, which is the rate public health officials typically cite as the minimum needed to provide herd immunity.

The rate of kindergartners attending school unvaccinated with documented exemptions rose to 3.3% from 2023 to 2024, up from 3% in the months from 2022 to 2023. Fourteen US states reported exemption rates of more than 5%.

For the MMR shot alone, about 280,000 children started kindergarten with no documentation of having received it. Measles was declared eliminated in the US nearly a quarter-century ago, but declining vaccination rates that are largely linked to misinformation have driven regular outbreaks of the disease in recent years. Measles is potentially deadly and highly contagious. It spreads easily from an infected person’s breath, coughs, or sneezes.

So far in 2024, there have been 264 measles cases in the US Young children who are not yet fully vaccinated are the most vulnerable, but 27% of this year’s cases have been among people age 20 or older. The MMR vaccine is given in two doses, with the first usually around 1 year old and the second between the ages of 4 and 6 years old. People not vaccinated during childhood can get the shots later in life.

Pertussis, which is commonly known as whooping cough, is up dramatically this year. The year-to-date count now stands at 15,661 cases, which is five times the number reported last year. Whooping cough is also highly contagious, spreading from droplets in coughs or sneezes. It often leads to pneumonia and can cause severe brain problems in rare cases.

Some experts have suggested that vaccine hesitancy isn’t entirely linked to misinformation, but also to post-pandemic vaccine fatigue. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other national disease experts recommend 12 vaccines that children should receive within their first 6 years of life.

SOURCES:

CDC: “Vaccination Coverage and Exemptions among Kindergartners,” “Estimated vaccination coverage for MMR vaccine, not up-to-date, and exempt from one or more vaccines, and among children enrolled in kindergarten, by jurisdiction — United States, 2023-24 school year,” “Measles Cases and Outbreaks,” “Nationally Notifiable Infectious Diseases and Conditions, United States: Weekly Tables: Pertussis.”

American Academy of Pediatrics: “All About the Recommended Immunization Schedules,” “Recommended Immunizations for Children Birth Through 6 Years Old.”