Fresh off one holiday, it’s time for the Treasure Valley’s check-up!
The Immunization Trend
All U.S. states require some vaccinations for children to attend public schools, but Idaho is one of 15 states that allows parents to object to immunizations based not only on medical reasons, but also personal beliefs or philosophies.
That’s given parents leeway for vaccine exemptions, which Idaho parents take advantage of more than any other state. Here are a few key takeaways of where that’s landed us:
- Compared to 93% of U.S. kindergarteners, only 4 out of 5 Idaho kindergarteners have received the four major vaccines: polio, chickenpox, MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), and DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis, also known as whooping cough).
- As Idaho EdNews reported, those numbers are getting worse year-over-year, and across all student age groups. For kindergarteners, the exemption rate is 12.1%.
- In the 2018-2019 school year, 4% of kindergarteners had an incomplete immunization record. That’s almost doubled this year, jumping to 7.2%.
- The most significant reason for that jump is the “religious/other exemption.” Medical exemptions have risen by fractions of a percentage point, but almost 1,000 more Idaho kindergarteners are unvaccinated this year than in the 2020-2021 school year under religious or philosophical exemptions.
Mpox Back In Idaho
As of Nov. 22, seven people across Ada and Canyon counties have mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, the first cases reported in Idaho this year.
Mpox can present flu-like systems in addition to a tell-tale blistering rash. A person with an infection can transmit the disease at any time the rash is present, and is most likely to do so during prolonged physical contact.
🤓 Why this disease is now called “mpox,” and how the change happened.
Holiday Season = Flu, RSV, COVID Seasons
Local clinicians say that the flu and RSV season is off to a slow start, but that they’re prepared to run a lot of tests following Thanksgiving weekend. And with daily highs hovering around 40° in the forecast, we can expect all respiratory diseases to be on the rise in the coming weeks.
Here are a few places to find COVID vaccines, and some information on RSV vaccines.
Also, you can order four more free at-home COVID tests from the federal government as of last week!
Out of the Measles Woods
You might remember news of a measles outbreak that started when an unvaccinated person passed the highly contagious disease to people in their household in mid-September.
The outbreak was contained to that Canyon County household, though it did infect a total of ten people, making it Idaho’s largest measles outbreak in 20 years. Public health officials say the local spread could have been much worse, and it could have spread beyond Idaho, as the person who was originally infected traveled through the Boise Airport in mid-September.
