Forty states saw rises in parents citing religious or other personal concerns for not vaccinating their young children.

Forty states saw rises in parents citing religious or other personal concerns for not vaccinating their young children.

The number of kids whose caregivers are opting them out of routine childhood vaccines has reached an all-time high, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday, potentially leaving hundreds of thousands of children unprotected against preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough.

The report did not dive into the reasons for the increase, but experts said the findings clearly reflect Americans’ growing unease about medicine in general.

“There is a rising distrust in the health care system,” said Dr. Amna Husain, a pediatrician in private practice in North Carolina, as well as a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Vaccine exemptions “have unfortunately trended upward with it.”

  • TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee
    1·
    8 months ago

    The fact that it’s slower, or that it won’t overwhelm hospitals as quickly, is so trivial in comparison as to be inconsequential. The only thing that matters is that it’s still there. Fast or slow, it will still infect the entire world, and the vulnerable won’t be safe.

    Is there not a huge distinction between “not infected” and “safe”? Hospitals that aren’t overwhelmed will be able to treat patients more effectively, so it should be way safer to have a slower spread of disease as it allows more patients to get better care.

    You also didn’t entirely address my point. If you need 90% of a population to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity for a disease, and 90% of an elementary school is fully vaccinated, how are the remaining 10% not protected if school is the only real place they go out and socially interact?