Measles vaccination rates drop after COVID-19 pandemic in counties across the US

Childhood vaccination rates against measles fell in the years after the COVID- pandemic in nearly of the more than U S counties with available content including in states that are battling outbreaks this year A Johns Hopkins University analysis published in JAMA this week illustrates where more vulnerable communities are located The results mirror trends established at state and national levels Routine childhood vaccination rates are dropping When you look at the state level or national level you really don t see those drastic drops Those are there They re real and they re really problematic declared Lauren Gardner an expert in infectious ailment modeling at Johns Hopkins University who is the paper s senior author Gardner also built the university s COVID- database Most of of the measles cases in the U S this year nationally as of Friday are in unvaccinated people It has been spreading among communities due to international and domestic excursion Three people have died from measles during this year s outbreaks and is inching closer to becoming the worst for measles in more than three decades Measles was eliminated in the U S in and the vaccine is safe and highly effective Residents schools nationwide require two doses of the measles mumps and rubella vaccine before kindergarten but the number of children with non-medical exemptions from those requirements hit an all-time high in the - school year Wellbeing experts say community-level vaccination requirements to be at or higher to prevent outbreaks The Johns Hopkins inquiry looked at counties across states comparing kindergarten vaccination rates averaged over school years from - to averages from - Where kindergarten input wasn t available the researchers used a comparable rate Here s what it looks like in counties where there have been outbreaks this year including in Texas counties that are the epicenter of measles Texas Texas has logged measles cases since late January the greater part in West Texas Gaines County has cases the the greater part in the state Almost of its population got measles While the county saw a two percentage-point increase in vaccination rates after the pandemic its rate remains below herd immunity Terry County cases and Yoakum County cases dropped below the threshold for herd immunity after the pandemic to and respectively Lubbock County which has seen cases and is the closest metro area to Gaines County was just below before the pandemic but dropped three percentage points after to El Paso County on the territory line of Mexico has had the third-most measles cases in Texas this year with Its vaccination rate is higher than but saw a percentage-point decline to Kansas Counties with outbreaks in Kansas include Gray with cases Haskell with and and Stevens with seven Vaccination rates in Gray County dropped percentage points after the pandemic from to Haskell County dropped percentage points to And Stevens County dropped percentage points to Colorado Colorado s outbreak which is linked to an international flight that landed at the Denver airport in mid-May involves six cases five in state residents and one out-of-state traveler Two people who got measles live in Arapahoe County in the Denver metro where the vaccination rate dropped percentage points to Three others live in El Paso County home to Colorado Springs where the vaccination rate dropped percentage points to post-pandemic North Dakota Pre-pandemic input in North Dakota wasn t available to Johns Hopkins researchers but they looked at rates from school years ending in and North Dakota s first outbreak started in Williams County which now has measles cases In the timeframe researchers looked at vaccination rates in Williams rose from in to in only to drop back to in Cass County has seven cases and its rate has stayed steady at about while Grand Forks County which has measles cases dropped from to