IN THE 14 months that Covid vaccines have been available, it has felt like they’ve dominated all conversations. What’s in them? How can we get them? Who doesn’t want to get them? And—of most relevance right now—when will the youngest children, the last cohort to become eligible, finally be able to receive them?
In that chatter, it’s been easy to forget that they’re not the only shot. Kids and adults routinely take an array of other vaccines, and a vast, complex infrastructure delivers them. But as the wave of the 2021 rollout recedes, shrinking from stadiums full of cars to single chairs at pharmacies, we’re seeing what it once obscured. Millions of people missed other crucial vaccines in the first two years—and counting—of the pandemic.
The drop-off had no single cause. Lockdowns, of course—both families and kids stayed home, and medical offices and school clinics closed for their own protection. But also, health care workers who might have handled well-child visits were reassigned to Covid-shot delivery instead. There were protective equipment shortages. Supply chain disruptions. Misinformation and disinformation that increased suspicion of vaccines. Every social factor that dented the pandemic response had a shadow effect on all the other vaccines that needed to be delivered as well.
Read more at Wired.