The bells are chiming, the kids are going back to school, and with that comes the return of germs. On Tuesday, Santa Barbara County supervisors turned their attention to vaccination rates, responding to a May 29 grand jury report that praised strong coverage in local schools but pointed to troubling blind spots.
The report — “Do Vaccination Rates in Santa Barbara County Create a Public Health Risk?” — noted that while more than 95 percent of county students are vaccinated, officials lack reliable data on two groups: homeschooled children and incarcerated people.
Because homeschooled children are not required to submit vaccination records, their immunization status is effectively invisible. County staff modeled a “worst case scenario,” assuming all homeschooled students were unvaccinated. Even then, overall rates only dropped to 93 percent, still within herd immunity thresholds…