Panic vs. prevention

Fear is understandable, but parents shouldn’t skip kids’ vaccines, especially in a pandemic.

Imagine if Dr. Anthony Fauci could snap his fingers right now and — poof! — a life-saving vaccine would magically appear in a handy nose spray or sterile vile at a doctor’s office near you.

Just like that, a deadly viral foe would be thwarted, untold deaths and illnesses prevented. We’d all be back to work, back to school, and the economy would be freed from perpetual life support.

Ridiculous fantasy? You bet. But only for the novel coronavirus.

Right now, at your nearest pediatrician’s office, there are arsenals of lifesaving vaccines that do the work every day of thwarting viral and bacterial foes — or at least keeping them in exile — and preventing illness, death and the social and economic paralysis many Americans are experiencing for the first time thanks to this pandemic.

For the first time, Americans who did not live through measles or polio or maybe never even had chicken pox — people completely unfamiliar with the terms “iron lung” or “Calamine bath” — are finally grasping the power, the necessity, the luxury of vaccines.

And yet, as we wait with bated breath for scientists to develop a vaccine that can sometimes seem far out of reach, parents shouldn’t forget the vaccines readily at their fingertips.

Vaccination rates appear to be dropping nationwide amid the novel coronavirus outbreak because parents are wary of taking their children to the doctor.

Data from 1,000 pediatricians across the country show that during the week of April 5, administration of measles, mumps and rubella shots fell by 50 percent when compared to a pre-COVID week in February. Diphtheria and whooping cough shots dropped by 42 percent and HPV shots by 73 percent, The New York Times reported, citing findings by PCC, a pediatric electronic health records company.

Others have reported less drastic declines, but American Academy of Pediatrics President Dr. Sara “Sally” Goza has been sounding the alarm on missed vaccines.

“Disrupting immunization schedules, even for brief periods, can lead to outbreaks of infections like measles or whooping cough that can be even more threatening to a child’s health,” she and American Medical Association President Dr. Patrice Harris wrote last week in an op-ed in USA Today.

This is an especially dangerous trend in Texas, where we’ve seen a 2,000 percent increase in vaccine exemptions since 2003. That’s the year Texas began allowing parents to decline required immunizations for non-medical reasons — which turned out to mean any reason at all.

Only a year ago, the Chronicle’s Todd Ackerman reported on a study showing Harris County — due to international travel and vaccine opt-out rates — is one of the nation’s most vulnerable counties to an outbreak of measles, the highly contagious, potentially fatal virus that was largely eradicated two decades ago.

Even without a pandemic, doctors must battle misinformation campaigns of the anti-vaccine movement, which according to a recent Texas Monthly report is already gearing up to spread fear and conspiracy theories about a novel coronavirus vaccine before it even exists.

The last thing we need is responsible parents who understand and support the vital role of vaccines to unwittingly set off another outbreak of an easily preventable disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that childhood immunizations among children born just since 1994 will prevent more than 419 million illnesses, 8 million hospitalizations and 936,000 early deaths.

Parents’ concerns about taking their kids to the doctor during a pandemic are understandable. But they may be unfounded. For one thing, evidence suggests COVID-19 symptoms have been relatively minor in children.

For another thing, many pediatricians have rushed to respond with staggered hours for sick and for well kids, and policies that allow families to wait in their cars until the patient’s name is called.

Dr. William Hogan, with Texas Children’s Pediatric Medical Group, said his practice on Kirby Drive sees healthy kids in the morning, taking temperatures of all who enter and barring entry to those with fever.

“I think we and other pediatricians’ offices are doing it in a way that parents should feel safe enough to come in and do it,” Hogan said.

Children suspected of COVID-19 are carefully screened by phone and, if testing is recommended, they are referred to an off-site parking garage for drivethrough testing.

“The kid never gets out of the car seat,” Hogan said.

He said parents should talk to health providers about concerns.

In some cases, providers may permit brief delays and alternative vaccine schedules. Parents can consult the CDC’s catch-up vaccination schedule for guidance on minimum intervals between shots.

But delaying first-year vaccinations is another matter: “Babies’ immune systems are kind of dumb. They need to be repeatedly prodded at two, four and six months,” he said. “It’s a process of priming the immune system to recognize the viruses and bacteria.”

Interrupting that process puts the child at risk of infection — and others as well.

Parents, please don’t skip vaccinations for your children. We’ve got all we can handle with this pandemic. We don’t need outbreaks we can prevent.