Doctors Warn Of Future Disease Outbreaks As Kids’ Vaccination Rates Drop

"It’s got a lot of us, quietly behind the scenes, very worried about outbreaks of some of these other diseases,” said one pediatric infectious diseases s...

Routine vaccination rates for children have significantly dropped since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, leading doctors to worry that there could be outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, including ones that carry more risk to children than COVID-19.

The number of routine vaccines distributed through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccines for Children program — which provides immunizations for 16 diseases to roughly 50% of American children — has dropped by 13.1 million in the period covering 2020 and 2021.

It’s “a worrisome drop,” a CDC spokesperson told HuffPost, suggesting that. children are missing their regular checkups and falling behind on their immunization schedules, making them increasingly vulnerable to otherwise preventable diseases and infections, like measles, meningitis and diphtheria.