“Vaccination rates among kindergarten students have plunged across broad swaths of the United States since before the pandemic, exposing children and families to increasing health risks as many school districts pull back from their traditional role as a bulwark against infectious disease,” the Washington Post reports. “The accelerating decline reveals the lasting medical consequences of a political backlash against public health efforts during the pandemic, which radicalized many against long-standing vaccine mandates.”

Source: The Guardian January 01, 2026 05:47 UTC