CT Schools Not In Vaccine Compliance Increase: School-By-School Vaccination Data

CONNECTICUT — The percentage of Connecticut kindergarten students who received required vaccinations decreased slightly during the 2020-2021 school year, but part of the reason may be due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overall, the percentage of kindergarten students who received required vaccines decreased by an average of 0.7 percent for each vaccine. Immunization data were collected during fall 2020. The COVID-19 vaccine is not required. (See table below for individual school data, or click here.)

The percentage of kindergarten schools out of compliance with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine for the 2020-2021 school year was 2.1 percent, which was up from an eight-year average of 1.2 percent and an increase of 0.8 percent from the previous school year.

The 2020-2021 school year was the first full school year during the COVID-19 pandemic. DPH officials noted that there were challenges in scheduling in-person medical appointments, and some parents were wary of making in-person appointments for their child’s vaccines due to the pandemic.

A new law that went into effective last year repealed new religious exemptions for vaccines in schools. The law’s impact is unclear, since the latest data comes from the prior school year. The rate of religious exemptions remained steady at 2.3 percent between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years.

Vaccines required depend on a child’s grade, but they generally include DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis), chickenpox (varicella), hepatitis A and B, polio, and measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).

“High vaccination rates protect not only vaccinated children but also those who cannot or have not been vaccinated, and this is what is known as herd immunity,” DPH Commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani said. “Schools that achieve herd immunity reduce the risk of outbreaks.”

High vaccination rates also help medically fragile children who depend on herd immunity for protection, Juthani said.