City health officials say New York City’s child vaccination rates still aren’t up to pre-pandemic levels — reflecting public health officials’ struggles with outreach, even as some states grapple with measles outbreaks.
The city has recorded two measles cases so far this year, although both were travel-related and not due to local transmission, the city health department told Gothamist on Thursday.
Department spokesperson Patrick Gallahue said a few measles cases a year isn’t unusual, but there were none in the city from 2020 through 2022, which he attributed to limited travel during the pandemic. There was one reported case in 2023.
Nationally, cases are on the rise this year. There have been 35 reported cases of measles across the United States from Jan. 1 through Feb. 22, compared with 58 cases during all of last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This year’s cases include an outbreak of nine cases over six weeks in Philadelphia and at least one case in South Jersey.
As of this week, 95.3% of students in K-12 public and charter schools throughout New York City are up to date with all vaccine requirements, compared with 98.5% before the COVID-19 pandemic, testified Dr. Celia Quinn, the city’s deputy commissioner for disease control, at a City Council hearing on childhood vaccination rates on Thursday afternoon.
“We are working closely with New York City public schools, providers and parents to bring up that number even further to ensure students and schools remain safe,” Quinn said.
Quinn said immunization rates are down between 2 and 16 percentage points from 2019, depending on vaccine type and age group. She noted that 4- to- 6-year-olds, who were infants or toddlers during the pandemic’s height, have to play catchup.
Vaccination rates dropped during the first years of the pandemic partly because many parents put off routine doctors’ visits, leading small children to fall behind on their vaccine schedules, Quinn…
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