Vaccination rate drops amid virus

Child vaccination rates have dropped in Connecticut and elsewhere as social distancing measures have been established during the COVID-19 pandemic. As states begin to reopen, local experts are mostly optimistic the rates will rebound, but said consequences could be grim if they don’t turn around.

According to the state Department of Public Health, doses of state-supplied pediatric vaccine distributed to health

care providers dropped 13 percent between March 2019 and March 2020, and fell 43 percent between April 2019 and April 2020.

The state isn’t alone in such declines.

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report showing that vaccination rates in Michigan, which implemented pandemicrelated stay-at-home orders on March 23, had declined among some age groups. The study examined vaccination rates for babies and toddlers at 1, 3, 5, 7, 16, 19 and 24 months old during a point in time in May 2020 and compared them with points in time in May 2016 through May 2019.

“Vaccination coverage declined in all milestone age cohorts, except for birth-dose hepatitis B coverage, which is typically administered in the hospital setting,” the CDC reported.

For instance, among children aged 5 months, “up-to-date status for all recommended vaccines declined from approximately two thirds of children during 2016–2019 ... to fewer than half in May 2020.”

The culprit for this drop in vaccinations is easy to spot, said Dr. Zane Saul, Bridgeport Hospital’s chief of infectious disease. “I think it’s probably a reflection of how many people moved to telehealth (and away from office visits) during the pandemic,” he said.

Magna Dias, Bridgeport Hospital’s pediatric chairwoman, echoed those thoughts. She said there are likely two reasons for the drop in young patients coming into offices — fear from providers, and fear from parents.

Dias said, in the early days of the pandemic, care providers felt an “understandable need to think about which patients needed be seen in person and which could be seen via telemedicine.”

She said health care professionals have placed an emphasis on making sure children younger than 2 get the appropriate vaccinations, which include those against measles, polio, chickenpox, and a host of other diseases. However, she said, “if there are any risk factors, we can defer visits.”

Parents showed some anxiety, particularly in the first few weeks of the pandemic, Dias said. When stay-at-home orders were issued, “this raised some fear about coming into the health setting,” she said.

Dias believes a lot of that anxiety has gone away, especially now that most doctors’ offices have taken measures to lower the chances of infection, such as having families complete paperwork in their cars to limit time spent in the office.

She hopes these changes will lead vaccination rates to quickly rebound because, if they don’t, “that’s when we could see ourselves getting into trouble,” Dias said.

Particularly with the state set to start reopening, she and other experts worried that a surge in non-vaccinated children could lead to a spike in vaccine-preventable illnesses, even as the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t fully dissipated.

“As stay-at-home orders are lifted, opportunities for the spread of childhood disease will increase,” said Dr. Dara Richards, chief medical officer of the Bridgeport-based Southwest Community Health Center. “The higher the number of unvaccinated children, the greater the likelihood of disease spread and outbreak after exposure to an infected individual.”

Richards said, as with COVID-19, vaccine-preventable diseases can be spread by symptomatic and asymptomatic patients and are highly contagious.

“Outbreaks can easily occur,” she said. “I think we all understand from our experience with COVID-19 just how serious this can be.”

Saul said he’s optimistic that people will soon be “playing catchup” with their children’s vaccinations, and other experts said they hope that’s the case considering the reopening of businesses this week could send more children into day care facilities.

“Summer camps, schools, and child care facilities bring together children from multiple communities, resulting in close physical contact with new friends and new germs,” said Jacqueline A. Vernarelli, director of Research Education and Consultation for the College of Health Professions at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. “Ensuring up-to-date vaccinations for all children increases the likelihood of achieving herd immunity and is a great way to prevent disease outbreaks in these groups.”