Healthy Living
Vaccination Religious Exemptions for CT Kindergarteners Up 25% in Past Two School Years
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The overall number of religious exemptions to vaccination for the state’s Kindergarteners increased by 25% between the last school year an the one before (from 2.0% to 2.5%), according to the state Department of Public Health. “This represents the largest single year increase in religious exemptions for vaccination since the DPH started tracking the statewide data a decade ago,” the department said in a news release issued Thursday. “As schools across Connecticut resume class this week, the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) is reminding parents to make sure their child’s immunizations are up to date,” the announcement said. Here’s the rest of the news release:
While the MMR [Measles Mumps and Rubella] immunization rate for Connecticut’s kindergarten students remains high, that rate declined from 96.5% for the 2017-2018 school year to a figure of 95.9% for the 2018-2019 school year, according to the state Department of Public Health data as of August 13, 2019, a decrease of 0.6%. This also continues a trend of steadily declining MMR vaccination rates among Connecticut kindergarteners since the 2015-2016 school year.