More Health Care Workers Refusing Influenza, COVID-19 Vaccines: CDC

Vaccination coverage is also lower among children, new paper finds.

A person receives an influenza vaccine in Chicago, Ill., in a file photograph. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Vaccination coverage is lower among health care workers and kindergartners, according to two studies published on Nov. 9 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Only about four in five health care workers received an annual influenza vaccine in the 2022–2023 influenza season, according to one of the papers, down from at least 88 percent before the pandemic.

Hospitals reported vaccination coverage among workers to the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network. CDC researchers then compared the vaccination rates across influenza seasons starting in 2017.

Researchers found that coverage was no lower than 88 percent in the years before the pandemic, but that after the pandemic started, coverage fell to as low as 80 percent.

In the most recent season, 2022–2023, the coverage was 81 percent.

The season went from Oct. 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023.

The reports came from acute care hospitals.

Even fewer personnel in nursing homes received an influenza vaccine during the most recent season, researchers said in another paper. The coverage among those workers was just 47.1 percent.

Annual influenza vaccines are recommended by the CDC for virtually all Americans aged 6 months and older.

The CDC also recommends COVID-19 vaccination for the same population.

Few health care workers have received newer COVID-19 vaccines, researchers also found.

Just 23 percent of personnel in nursing homes and just 17 percent of workers in acute care hospitals had received a recent shot during the October to March season.

The CDC recommended people receive a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine during that time.

The bivalent shots, which did not work well, were replaced recently by another new formulation.

The coverage for COVID-19 vaccines was much higher before. In April 2022, for instance, surveys indicated 87.3 percent of health care workers had finished a primary series and 67.1 percent had received a booster.

Across all Americans, uptake of COVID-19 vaccines has declined considerably since earlier in the pandemic. Just 17 percent received a bivalent dose, compared to 69.5 percent who completed a primary series, according to CDC data.

About 5 percent of Americans have received one of the newest vaccines, which were cleared and recommended in August.

In another paper published Thursday, researchers found that fewer kindergartners have been receiving school-mandated vaccines since around the time the pandemic started.

Coverage with vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTaP), polio, and chickenpox was 95 percent nationwide in the 2019–2020 school year. That coverage dropped to 94 percent in the first full school year after the pandemic started and declined further to 93 percent in 2021–2022.

Coverage remained down in the 2022–2023 school year, according to the new paper, while more exemptions have been granted.

Among the surveyed population, 93.1 percent of kindergartners had received the MMR vaccine and the polio vaccine, while 92.9 percent had received the chickenpox, or varicella shot, and 92.7 percent had received the DTaP vaccine.

Those percentages were virtually unchanged from the previous school year.

But 3 percent of children nationally received an exemption from school vaccine mandates, up 0.4 percent from the year prior, the researchers found.

Exemptions increased in 41 states and declined in just five. In 10 of the states, exemptions are now above 5 percent.

Explanations

The researchers said the lower uptake among health care workers could stem from hesitancy to receive influenza and COVID-19 vaccines together. Recent research has suggested doing so could increase the risk of strokes, and a top U.S. official has said he would get the shots at different times to lessen the risk of adverse events, though the CDC says it is safe to receive them at the same time.

Another speculated cause was higher mask usage in health care facilities, which might have led to the perception that influenza vaccination was not as important for preventing infection, the researchers said.

Dr. Mandy Cohen, the CDC’s director, told CBS this week that people should go get influenza and COVID-19 vaccines ahead of Thanksgiving so “your body can build up its protection ahead of the holiday season.” The only human data available for the COVID-19 vaccines showed they increased neutralizing antibody levels, thought to protect against the illness, but no clinical efficacy estimates have been made public.

In the kindergarten study, the researchers said that coverage under 95 percent “increases the risk for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.” They said coverage could be increased by letting students start school while on a “catch-up schedule” for doses they have not received yet.

The papers were published by the CDC’s quasi-journal, which often does not involve peer review and involves shaping papers to align with the agency’s messaging. Acknowledged limitations include possible over- or underestimates due to inaccurate or absent documentation.

Dr. Renata Moon, a pediatrician who was fired from one of her jobs for raising concerns about COVID-19 vaccines, said that many parents have lost trust in health care.

“Events since 2020 have led to their ’safer to wait’ approach to vaccination. Americans don’t appreciate attempts to force them into making personal decisions for their own children,” Dr. Moon told The Epoch Times via email after reviewing the new studies.