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Health officials are encouraging parents to make sure their children are up-to-date on their vaccinations ahead of the upcoming school year.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, childhood vaccination rates declined. In 46 of 83 Michigan counties, those rates dipped below 70%, which is the minimum threshold that doctors recommend to avoid potential outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses. Among those counties, six dropped below 60%, as did the city of Detroit, according to Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive for the state’s health department.
“This is very concerning,” Khaldun said Monday, Aug. 9, during a press event at Whitehills Elementary School in East Lansing. “As we have seen with COVID-19 across the entire country, when an area has lower vaccination rates, it creates an environment where diseases can spread.”
Khaldun urged parents to contact their family doctor to determine if their children have gotten the appropriate vaccines. As a mother of three, she said she already took her kids to a pediatrician this summer to make sure they were up-to-date.
For children 12 years and older, she also recommended getting a COVID-19 vaccine before returning to school this fall.
“I also want to point out that while kids are less likely to get severely ill from COVID-19, they still can,” Khaldun said. “And the more virus we have in the community, the greater the risk is that a child will also come in contact with the virus and become ill, and they can not only spread it in school, they can spread it to others in their household or the broader community.”
In the U.S., there are 17 vaccines that prevent dangerous or deadly diseases, explained Linda Vail, health officer for Ingham County. Some have fully eradicated illnesses, while others have significantly limited them, but declining vaccination rates could allow them to return.
In 1974, about 80% of Japanese children were getting the vaccine for pertussis, or whooping cough. That year there were 393 cases of whooping cough in Japan, and not a single death linked to the illness. Vaccination rates fell off over the next five years, leading to an emergence of pertussis, and in 1979 there were 13,000 cases and 41 deaths linked to the preventable-disease.
Vail gave other such examples while speaking on the topic of vaccinations Monday, including chickenpox, diphtheria, and rubella. She noted that there were 12.5 million cases of rubella between 1964 and 1965, along with 2,000 childhood deaths and 11,000 miscarriages linked to the illness. Since 2012, there have been 15 such cases reported to the CDC, because the vaccine has an efficacy of 97%.
“We have people in our communities always who can’t get vaccinated for medical reasons,” Vail said. “We have an obligation to protect those vulnerable people in our community by getting vaccinated around them. By creating a barrier for that virus to get into our communities and infect people, and we do that very effectively by having high enough vaccinates rates around the vulnerable populations.”
Recommended vaccines for children from birth through 6 years old include Hepatitis B, DTap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis), Hib (Haemophilus influenza), PCV13 (pnemococcal), IPV (polio), influenza, MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), Varicella (chickenpox), and Hepatitis. There are additional shots recommended for children 7 to 18 years old, available through the CDC’s vaccine schedule.
The CDC estimates that for individuals born between 1994 and 2013, vaccinations will prevent an estimated 322 million illnesses, 21 million hospitalizations, and 732,000 deaths over the course of their lifetime, Vail said.
As of Monday, about 58.8% of Michigan residents 12 and older had gotten a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and about 54.3% were fully vaccinated. Younger populations account for the lowest rates, with 32.9% of the 12-to-15-year-olds getting at least one shot, and 42.6% of the 16-to-19-year-olds starting their vaccination.
To find a COVID-19 vaccine near you, visit Michigan’s COVID-19 vaccine website or go to VaccineFinder.org.