Children's vaccination rates dip in Colorado
Without herd immunity an outbreak of measles is likely.
Although pro-vaccination, a friend had grown weary of the subject post-COVID and declined to get the shingles vaccine at the recommended age of 50. The vaccine is 90% effective at preventing shingles and lessens the severity of the attack for the ten percent who do get it. Before long, she got such a bad case of the painful blisters along her spine that she needed more than the standard shingles treatment. Needless to say, she regretted not getting the vaccine.
Luckily, shingles is rarely fatal. The same cannot be said for several other vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles. Unfortunately, routine vaccination rates for measles and other diseases declined for kindergartners during the pandemic and have failed to return to normal. It doesn’t help that the head of the federal Health and Human Services Department downplays the efficacy of vaccines, a medical invention that has saved more lives than any other in human history.
As the Denver Post recently reported, there is reason to worry in Colorado. While 94% of Colorado children in public schools (preschool through 12th grade) are current on their measles shots, some counties are well below the percentage needed to maintain community immunity. Medical experts estimate that community immunity or herd immunity for measles is achieved when at least 95% of the community is inoculated against the disease.
If someone who has contracted the diseases comes into the community, the disease is unlikely to spread. This is important for the small percentage of people who are too young to be vaccinated or for specific health reasons cannot get the vaccine.
In 23 Colorado counties vaccination rates among public school students met the threshold. However, in 13 counties, vaccination rates were 90% or lower. In two Colorado counties, Hinsdale and Dolores, a quarter of children attending public schools are not up-to-date on their shots. The vaccination rate among all Colorado students is likely lower since the official count does not include home or privately schooled children who as a group are less likely to be vaccinated. Even in counties with high vaccination rates, some schools, public or private, have large percentages of students are unvaccinated.
The drop in childhood vaccinations has consequences. So far this year, five people in Colorado have contracted measles. Not since 1996 has the state experienced more than two cases in a year. The year isn’t even half over.
Over the last couple of decades, measles outbreaks were rare and the disease did not circulate the way it once did. As vaccination rates drop, health officials worry that disease may become more common. This year, nationwide there have been more than a 1,000 confirmed case of measles mostly among unvaccinated children. Three people have died. Measles is not only fatal in some cases, a subset of those who survive will later develop neurodegenerative diseases.
It could get worse. One medical simulation published in the Journal of the American Medical Association predicted that at current vaccination rates measles could go back to being a common disease killing a hundred people a year.
This doesn’t have to happen. Just two doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is 97% effective in warding off the disease completely and lessening the severity of the disease in the small percentage of vaccinated people who do get infected. Not getting an available vaccine for a fatal disease is like not wearing a seatbelt. You could risk it but why?