New data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that vaccination rates among U.S. kindergartners averaged about 92 percent for the diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTaP) and measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines and declined during the 2023-2024 school year, while the percentage of children with vaccine exemptions reached 3.3 percent.1 Twenty years earlier, in the 2003-20-4 school year, the CDC reported that vaccination rates for children entering school were over 95 percent for DTaP and MMR.2
In the 2023-2024 school year, vaccination coverage among kindergartners across the United States experienced a decline for all reported vaccines. Coverage rates ranged from 92.3 percent for the DTaP vaccine to 92.7 percent for the MMR vaccine. More than 30 states reported decreased coverage for routine vaccines, including MMR, DTaP, poliovirus, and varicella. The CDC’s report stated that approximately 280,000 kindergartners are attending school without documented completion of the MMR vaccine series.3
Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer for the National Association of County and City Health Officials said:
The broader story is that vaccination coverage decreased in 35 states, and 14 states out of those 35 had at least one full percentage point drop, and what that translates to is about 280,000 students without proof of complete vaccinations. But the more you consider local communities and neighborhoods, the more the risk can be different, because you see these larger pockets of vaccine-hesitant communities.4
According to Noel Brewer, PhD, a professor of health behavior at the University of North Carolina, unvaccinated children are often clustered within specific communities or schools. Brewer noted that individuals who are skeptical about vaccines tend to live in close proximity to one another.5
The proportion of kindergartners with vaccine exemptions has reached an all-time high, increasing to 3.3 percent from three percent for the 2022-2023 school year. This rise in exemptions occurred in forty states and the District of Columbia (DC), with fourteen states reporting exemption rates exceeding five percent. Approximately 127,000 kindergartners are now exempt from one or more vaccines.6
Non-Medical Vaccine Exemptions Have Increased
All states permit medical exemptions to vaccination that must be written by an MD or DO and in most states must conform to contraindications acknowledged by the CDC.7 All but five states (California, Connecticut, New York, Maine and West Virginia) allow a religious, personal belief of conscientious belief exemption.8 Over the past decade, the percentage of kindergartners with medical exemptions has remained relatively stable at approximately 0.2 percent; however, the percentage of non-medical exemptions has gradually increased, resulting in an overall exemption rate that rose from 1.6 percent in the 2011-2012 school year to more than double that figure in 2023-2024.9
Conflicting information from public health officials during the coronavirus pandemic and the controversy about COVID-19 shot risks and failure appears to have caused more parents to rethink routine childhood vaccinations and vaccine requirements for school entry that they once accepted. This rising vaccine hesitancy gives evidence for increased public awareness and questions about the safety, effectiveness and necessity of receiving many different vaccines.10
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Click here to view References:1 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vaccination Coverage and Exemptions among Kindergartners. Oct. 2, 2024.
2 CDC. Vaccination Coverage Among Children in School – United States, 2003-2004 School Year. MMWR Nov 12, 2004; 53(44): 1041-1044.
3 Ibid.
4 McPhillips D, Howard J. Required vaccine coverage among US kindergartners dips again, new CDC data shows. CNN Oct. 2, 2024.
5 Stobbe M. US school-entry vaccination rates fall as exemptions keep rising. ABC News Oct. 2, 2024.
6 CDC. Vaccination Coverage and Exemptions among Kindergartners. Oct. 2, 2024.
7 CDC. Vaccine Recommendations and Guidelines of the CDC. Contraindications and Precautions. Aug. 1, 2023.
8 National Vaccine Information Center. State Vaccine Laws: Map for State Vaccine Requirements and Exemptions.
9 Stobbe M. US school-entry vaccination rates fall as exemptions keep rising. ABC News Oct. 2, 2024.
10 Ibid.
6 Responses
That is great news. We all need to ask more questions and demand safe vaccines.
How many people do or do not participate in the governments recommended vaccination program has never been anyone elses business in the first place. The fact these statistics exist is a problem and a violation of our right to privacy. The article failed to mention any speculation about how many people with ‘compliant records’ falsified those records in the first place, as falsifying records is often easier than navigating overly complex punitive yet legal opt out channels. The illusion of consensus. Coercion is not consent.
These vaccination rate compliance records exist so the government can work in unison with the insurance and pharmasuetical industry to project future sales and instill a sense of fear and control upon the people, not for public health. If they actually cared about anyones health, they’d also care about their privacy right? If the sentiments were genuine? Instead the people whom said no are never acknowledged as simply making independent health decisions, instead framed as a form of pestilence which spreads like a mind disease in groups among each other based on proximity. That’s a really kind and caring way to approach someone whom opt outs. Wow. The people may have shared factual data among each other! Shut it down.
Another fundamental problem here is the government employees and various agencies such as schools and medical practices also have funding at stake regarding these compliance statistics, so of course there is undoubtedly many records falsifications and fictitious statements about product delivery compliance on the bureaucratic administrative end, to keep the funding and tax subsidies going. Governments and their agents whom do not respect liberty, whom over tax and over spend, whom apply the use of force rather than respecting voluntary societal principals, they end up effectively as serial liars, bullies, and con artists. Who’s still buying this? Why should we even care about another set of likely to be made up statistics by government agents? The children are fine, leave them alone, respect their privacy.
If anyone took vaccinations or not is supposed to be protected private medical records. Aggregating and allegedly making the data anonymous does not answer what right they have to this private health data in the first place. The system does not have the right to force everyone into an automatic opted in situation, then make us go through hell and high water to opt out. The fundamental structure of governance on the matter of vaccines is antithetical to liberty and constitutional rights. Now kindly get off our lawn, and stop asking us questions about if we have taken vaccines, what political party we support, where we shop, what we think, whom our friends are, where we go online, where our phones are pinging, and every other privacy violating practice which the fascist state has conditioned people to believe is acceptable every day practice. Thank you.
Here here 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
Amen!!!
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They are more concerned about vaccine rates than health!
How many studies show the health of vaccinate students vs vaccine free students?