Vaccination exemptions reach highest level ever
Instructional materials are posted on a wall of a kindergarten class in Maryland on Jan. 24, 2023. The proportion of U.S. kindergartners exempted from school attendance vaccination requirements has hit its highest level ever, 3%, U.S. health officials said.
(AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — The proportion of U.S. kindergartners exempted from school vaccination requirements has hit its highest level ever, 3%, U.S. health officials said last Thursday.
More parents are questioning routine childhood vaccinations that they used to automatically accept, an effect of the political schism that emerged during the pandemic around COVID-19 vaccines, experts say.
Even though more kids were given exemptions, the national vaccination rate held steady: 93% of kindergartners got their required shots for the 2022-23 school year, the same as the year before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Thursday. The rate was 95% in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
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