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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
“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.
