Vaccine education should be top priority
Over half a century ago, a groundbreaking event occurred at Arsenal Elementary, a public elementary school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. '
137 children, all under the age of 9, patiently lined up in their gymnasium with their sleeves rolled up.
Dr. Jonas Salk told silly jokes to keep them calm as, one-by-one, he gently leaned over to personally administer the very first doses of his revolutionary polio vaccine.
Since that historic day, millions of children receive their annual polio vaccine, along with other routine immunizations, giving them hope for a life free from deadly, debilitating and preventable diseases. And in return, entire regions are protected, thanks to high levels of invulnerability called herd immunity.
However, promotion efforts to reach herd immunity among adolescents are now being threatened nationwide and stopped completely in Tennessee.
Here in our state, last week, Department of Health officials halted all adolescent vaccine outreach efforts only days before another study reported that, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 17 million children worldwide have missed their routine vaccinations.
Vaccination turnout is dismal
In America, an estimated one in five have fallen behind on their shots to prevent diseases such as measles, diphtheria, tetanus, and polio. “It would be a horrible irony for us to get through this pandemic and lose children to these preventable diseases,” Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University, told the New York Times.
Our experience with COVID-19 has compellingly reinforced how the classroom is central to the lives of children with schools serving as the cornerstones of our communities. PRE-COVID, some 56.4 million children attended K-12 school.
As has been made painfully clear, when children are disconnected from school, the ramifications are serious and widespread -- ranging from challenges in mental health, nutrition, learning loss, as well as economic hardship for working families.
Unlike polio, children are less likely to contract COVID-19 and die from it, yet they’ve unmistakably borne the brunt of this pandemic in tragic ways we are only beginning to discover.
While the pandemic has touched nearly every part of society, its impact has not been felt equally – especially in Tennessee. In Shelby County, where I work with the District’s 200 schools to promote whole child health, 91% of our families are Black, Native American or Hispanic.
According to the CDC, Black and Latino adults are two to three more times likely to be hospitalized and die from COVID-19 than white Americans. This means that for the past 17 months, children of color have unduly suffered from stress and loss in their households and communities.
As discouraging as these realities are, it only brings the work ahead into sharper focus. Thanks to the incredible effectiveness of the vaccinations, COVID-19 has now joined the ranks of polio and rubella as a preventable disease.
Tennesseans have poor vaccination turnout
In its debut week alone, 600,000 12-15-year-olds received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC. Yet despite the proven safety and potential, Tennesseans are set to take a huge step backward in the race to herd immunity, when we should be leading the way.
We can’t expect these vaccines to make their way into the arms of children whose families are already struggling; our charge is to be creative and proactive by directing resources to tackle this challenge.
Many local districts have risen to this challenge, connecting families with vital information about accessing immunizations.
Shelby County district staff have been working with the City of Memphis, Shelby County Government, Shelby County Health Department and other partners to promote community vaccination sites and resources for its staff and students. These efforts continue despite recent reports of a digression from the Tennessee Department of Health around vaccinations.
It won’t be long before students start returning to classrooms.
Some of these children haven’t been in a school building for over a year. Now is not the time to pull back; we must redouble our efforts around vaccine education, access, and equity to close the gap exacerbated by the pandemic. Let’s work together to make sure the return to in-person learning is as safe as possible by protecting our children from preventable diseases.
If you see a toddler struggling to walk, instinctively you reach down and lend a steady hand.
In that same spirit, I say to my fellow Tennesseans, let’s work together to restore and strengthen the health, safety and well-being of our children – including giving them the protection they deserve from COVID-19 and all preventable diseases.
Donna Crawford is a director of the Healthy Schools and Communities Program at the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, for over 30 years, she has worked with Tennessee schools and public health partners in Tennessee and beyond to address health inequities.