I’m a data reporter.
After years of holding steady, American vaccination rates against once-common childhood diseases fell during the coronavirus pandemic and continued to drop for much of the past four years.
Nationwide, less than 93 percent of kindergartners completed the measles vaccine last year, down from 95 percent, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Immunization rates against polio, whooping cough and chickenpox fell similarly.
And there have been far more precipitous drops in some states, counties and school districts.
States, not the federal government, set vaccine mandates. But the incoming Trump administration could encourage anti-vaccine sentiment and undermine state programs. The president-elect’s pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has spread the false theory that vaccines cause autism, among other misinformation.
Already, falling vaccination rates have followed a partisan pattern.
There are two ways vaccination rates can drop: More families can get an exemption, which gives them legal permission to skip vaccines; or more families can fail to vaccinate their children without permission.