MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It’s the time of year where the waiting room at Le Bonheur Children’s Outpatient Center in the Medical District will soon be full of patients in for appointments with pediatricians like Dr. Jason Yaun.
“It gets really busy. We do a lot of checkups, a lot of back to school immunizations,” said Dr. Yaun.
However, research uncovered by WREG shows immunization rates for school age children continue to decline across the country and right here in the Mid-South.
During the 2019-2020 school year, vaccine rates fell from what was a decade of 95 percent coverage among kindergarteners to less than 93 percent and it’s there hovered since, according to the latest federal health data, which is for the 2023-24 school year.
“A lot of that is due to access due to the pandemic and other reasons, but we haven’t seen that rebound,” explained Dr. Yaun…