MISSED VACCINATIONS COULD LEAD TO MEASLES OUTBREAKS

The United States could begin seeing outbreaks of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases because children are failing to get routine immunizations during the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. A newly released study found vaccinations for children and vaccine orders dropped precipitously in late March, about a week after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency. As social distancing restrictions are relaxed, diseases beyond COVID-19 could spread, it warns. The decline in vaccines was not as severe for children under two, and vaccination numbers for that group have begun to tick back up, the study found. But as of mid-april, about 1,500 young children a week were getting measles vaccines at sites tracked by the CDC, compared to 2,500 a week before the pandemic. Among older children, the numbers are much worse — only a few hundred a week are getting their measles vaccines, instead of thousands.