Vaccine opt-out rate for Louisiana children skyrockets. Herd immunity at risk, experts say.

Parents opted out of vaccines for Louisiana’s kindergartners at the highest rate in at least a decade as several new bills to weaken vaccine requirements continue to advance in the Louisiana Legislature.

During the 2022-23 school year, about 2.3% of children entering school requested exemptions, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 0.1% of those were due to medical reasons.

That’s around double the year before, when 1.1% of kindergarten students requested nonmedical exemptions. From 2011 to 2017, the average exemption rate was around 0.75%.

“It’s a slippery slope,” said Dr. Mark Kline, physician in chief at Children’s Hospital New Orleans and an infectious disease specialist. “The higher the percentage of school-age children who are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated, the less herd immunity we have.”

Louisiana is already one of 15 states that allows for “philosophical” exemptions for any reason. Health experts worry that making it easier to opt out may push the state into outbreak territory. For some diseases, a slim margin determines whether viruses can easily spread. ..Several states are experiencing (measles) outbreaks…

…Because vaccination has been baked into schooling for so long, the benefits of vaccination are not as apparent as they once were, when children were paralyzed by polio or killed by measles at higher rates. Childhood vaccinations prevent an estimated 4 million deaths yearly, according to the CDC.

Those who are most at risk when vaccination rates drop are infants too young to be vaccinated and people with weakened immune systems, for whom vaccination doesn’t work as well.

“If the vaccine drops continue, we’re going to get outbreaks,” said Tulane's Stoecker. “And kids are going to die. And maybe at that point, we’ll reconsider what our policy options are.”

Needs to pass

HB46 by Representative Kathy Edmonston Printable Version
VACCINES/VACCINATION: Provides that no person shall be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of enrollment or attendance at any public or nonpublic school

Current Status: Pending Senate Education

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Date Chamber Journal
Page Action sort history by ascending dates
04/08 S 6 Read second time by title and referred to the Committee on Education.
04/03 S 27 Received in the Senate. Rules suspended. Read first time by title and placed on the Calendar for a second reading.
04/03 H 49 Read third time by title, roll called on final passage, yeas 74, nays 28. Finally passed, title adopted, ordered to the Senate.
04/02 H Scheduled for floor debate on 04/03/2024.
04/02 H 25 Read by title, ordered engrossed, passed to 3rd reading.
03/27 H 4 Reported favorably (13-1).
03/11 H 9 Read by title, under the rules, referred to the Committee on Education.
02/02 H First appeared in the Interim Calendar on 2/2/2024.
01/30 H Under the rules, provisionally referred to the Committee on Education.
01/30 H Prefiled.

https://legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=245566

And HB47

HB47 by Representative Kathy Edmonston Printable Version
VACCINES/VACCINATION: Requires that communication issued about immunization requirements include exemption information and applies exemptions not only to students seeking to enter school but also to students attending school

Current Status: Pending Senate Education

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Text Expand Text
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Date Chamber Journal
Page Action sort history by ascending dates
04/08 S 6 Read second time by title and referred to the Committee on Education.
04/03 S 27 Received in the Senate. Rules suspended. Read first time by title and placed on the Calendar for a second reading.
04/03 H 49 Read third time by title, amended, roll called on final passage, yeas 77, nays 28. Finally passed, title adopted, ordered to the Senate.
04/02 H Scheduled for floor debate on 04/03/2024.
04/02 H 25 Read by title, ordered engrossed, passed to 3rd reading.
03/27 H 4 Reported favorably (13-0).
03/11 H 9 Read by title, under the rules, referred to the Committee on Education.
02/02 H First appeared in the Interim Calendar on 2/2/2024.
01/30 H Under the rules, provisionally referred to the Committee on Education.
01/30 H Prefiled.

https://legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?s=24RS&b=HB47&sbi=y

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