Harborview Medical Center pediatrician Dr. Beth Dawson-Hahn has become accustomed to diagnosing children over Zoom. Sometimes, a child’s checkup is limited to a short telehealth call with parents.
As a result, lots of boxes have gone unchecked, especially at the peak of the pandemic — routine vaccines against common illnesses such as chickenpox, but also shots to prevent more serious viral infections, like measles, mumps and rubella. Unless parents were willing to bring their kids in for a visit, many went without the vaccines.
Now, public health officials and clinicians are scrambling to catch up. The number of vaccines given to kids 18 and under in Washington has dropped by hundreds of thousands, compared to prepandemic levels, new state and federal data show. In April 2020, there was a decrease of 70% to 80% in doses administered to children 4-17 compared with the average from the past five years.
And this coming school year, families are required to provide a copy of medically verified immunization records — or a valid exemption — for their children to attend school.