Child Vaccinations Dropped During Pandemic: Putnam Officials

BREWSTER, NY — Health officials have a new concern resulting from the coronavirus pandemic: While the practice of social or physical distancing has been quite effective in slowing the spread of that disease, there has been a significant decline in vaccination rates for the 14 preventable childhood diseases.

"We can look at two sets of numbers and see there has been a large decrease in the number of children receiving their routine vaccinations for all the preventable childhood illnesses," said Michael J. Nesheiwat, MD, Putnam County’s Commissioner of Health. "The first relates to vaccines being ordered by physicians through the Vaccines for Children program, and the second set of data is the number of vaccines given by eight large U.S. health care organizations."

The Centers for Disease Control described "a notable decrease in orders" for the vaccines in a report this spring, with 2.5 million fewer doses ordered from the Federal Vaccines for Children program.

An investigation by Scientific American found that rates of childhood immunization fell in the spring as the pandemic began across the country, raising the risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.

Dr. Cornelius Ferreira, chair of Primary Care at Nuvance Health, said they continued to vaccinate pediatric patients through the pandemic.

"We reserved Monday mornings for these visit types and were able to support those patients needing vaccines using our safety precautions," Dr. Ferreira told Patch. "That being said, there was a decrease in well-child visits as a result of our initial transition to virtual visits and parents being reluctant to have their children coming into our practices for well-child visits. Our practices have now increased in-person visits and as a result are seeing an increase in these visits and thus the vaccines that accompany said visits."

Schools will reopen if the region they're located in is in phase 4 of the state's reopening plan and that region's daily infection rate remains at 5 percent or lower over a 14-day average. Schools will close if the regional infection rate is above 9 percent on a 7-day average after Aug. 1, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday.

SEE: Cuomo Unveils Formula For NY Schools To Open — And Stay Open

The Hudson region is in phase 4 and the daily positivity rate was under 1 percent, Cuomo said in his news briefing.

In New York, children attending day care and pre-K through 12th grade, including public, private, and religious schools, must be vaccinated unless they have a medical exemption.

The vaccines required in New York:

• Diphtheria and Tetanus toxoid-containing vaccine and Pertussis vaccine (Dtap/DTP/Tdap)
• Hepatitis B vaccine
• Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine (MMR)
• Polio vaccine (IPV/OPV)
• Varicella (Chickenpox) vaccine
• Meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MenACWY)
• Haemophilus influenzae type b conjugate vaccine (HiB)
• Pneumococcal Conjugate vaccine (PCV)

The decline in orders and administration began the week after the national emergency declaration.

Vaccinations have begun to rebound; for example in Connecticut the number of doses issued by the health department jumped in June by 32 percent over the previous June, the Hartford Courant reported.

Health officials in the Hudson Valley remind parents of children who have fallen behind in childhood immunizations to contact their child’s physician to get back on track.

In Putnam County, if your child does not have a physician, the health department will be resuming vaccination clinics three times a month.

Appointments are required and clinics will be conducted following all the required safety protocols, including social and physical distancing, face coverings or masks, and heightened disinfecting routines.

To schedule an appointment, call 845-808-1332. Clients will be instructed on the newest safety procedures, which will include calling from their car upon arrival. A member of the immunization team will greet them and take their temperature. A COVID health screening will be conducted and the client will be escorted to the interview area, since the waiting area has been closed.

With these new protocols in place, it is not too early to start thinking about any necessary vaccines that children may need for the upcoming school year, Nesheiwat said.