Parents are playing catch up on routine vaccines for children

WAMU 88.5 | By Sophia Alvarez Boyd

Published May 26, 2022 at 7:46 AM CDT

As children under 5 wait for FDA approval of a covid19 vaccine, some children missed out on routine immunizations during the pandemic.

As children under 5 wait for FDA approval of a COVID-19 vaccine, some kids still need to catch up on routine vaccines for other diseases, including measles, mumps, and meningitis.

According to UNICEF and the WHO, 23 million children globally missed out on basic childhood vaccines that are typically received through routine health services in 2020.

Some children in the U.S. caught up last year, but the vaccination rate was still 7 percent lower than years before the pandemic. That’s according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Washington state recently reported one of the sharpest declines at 13 percent. The biggest disparity was among children whoare19 to 35 months old. The state had two measles outbreaks in 2019 and now public health experts are worried it’s happening again.

POLITICO reports that some of this could be due to changing attitudes thanks to vaccine misinformation that has spread during the pandemic.

So how are attitudes toward vaccinations changing? And what are the consequences if more children don’t catch up?