Drop in childhood vaccinations during pandemic may raise risk of outbreaks of other diseases when schools reopen, CDC says

Routine childhood vaccinations dropped dramatically during the early months of the pandemic, and although those began rebounding last summer, many children and adolescents are still behind on shots, according to a federal health report released Thursday.

That lag might pose “a serious public health threat” of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses such as measles and whooping cough that have the potential to derail efforts to reopen schools, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.