Vaccinations Have Sharply Declined Nationwide during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Vaccinations Have Sharply Declined Nationwide during the COVID-19 Pandemic

4 years ago
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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccinations-have-sharply-declined-nationwide-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

Since the coronavirus pandemic started spreading across the U.S. and state governments issued stay-at-home orders, millions of Americans have isolated themselves for months to avoid exposure. One result is that parents across the country have canceled pediatric checkups—and immunization levels for vaccine-preventable diseases have plummeted, a Scientific American investigation has found.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in May that routine orders of pediatric vaccines had dropped because of the pandemic. Later that month the agency released a report showing that, compared with previous years, Michigan’s vaccination coverage among children under two years old declined in the months after Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued a stay-at-home order. Angela Shen, a visiting research scientist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a retired captain of the U.S. Public Health Service, who co-authored the CDC’s report on Michigan, says that the researchers saw drops in adult vaccinations as well. Because of the declines, she says, “we have to be mindful that we don’t wind up with an epidemic of vaccine-preventable diseases.”