At the start of the 2019–2020 school year, vaccination rates for incoming kindergartners across the country were about 95%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the start of 2022–2023 school year, this coverage dipped to 93%.
While the drop may seem small, it represents hundreds of thousands of children and a slip away from herd immunity for diseases like the measles, according to Neil Maniar, professor of the practice in health sciences at Northeastern University. This places people who cannot be immunized for medical reasons at risk of getting the measles, which is highly contagious and can lead to severe illness.