By Morgan Chilson
The number of kindergarteners with vaccine exemptions increased from 2.9% in the 2023-24 school year to 3.59% in 2024-25, according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment state vaccine data, reported in September.
The percentage of kindergarteners who received the state-required vaccines to attend school remained relatively stable, rising just three-tenths of a percent, from 86.7% to 87%, data showed.
But county data breakdowns highlighted wide disparities across Kansas, with Morton County in the southwest corner of the state reporting the lowest number of kindergarteners with required vaccines at 50%. Kingman County followed with 54.1%, then Decatur County at 60%.
Twenty-two Kansas counties reported vaccination rates at less than 75%.
“I have to believe, given the current climate and the unfortunate melding of medicine and science with politics and also, just from what we’ve seen in the recent past, that, yes, there will continue to be more exemptions,” said Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at the University of Kansas Health System. “This will then also open the door, unfortunately, for more disease and more consequences and complications of that disease process, whatever that might be.”
Concerns about vaccine safety are being raised at the national level as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expresses doubts about vaccine use, despite disagreement from all medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Institutes of Health.
Some states have changed vaccine mandates based on legislators’ concerns, with Florida completely eliminating all vaccine mandates for children.
Kansas vaccine requirements follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, according to KDHE spokeswoman Jill Bronaugh.
“We are in the process of gathering the most current and accurate information before making any changes or issuing additional guidance or educational materials as it relates to current vaccine schedules and recommendations,” she said in an email.
Bronaugh did not answer a question about whether the state would continue to follow CDC recommendations as changes are implemented. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices last week recommended that the combined shot for measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox) be separated into two shots, with chickenpox being given separately and at a different time.
Decatur County on the Nebraska border saw a drop to 60% of the number of kindergarteners with the required number of vaccinations. The small school district has around 150 students, but the decline still raises concerns for local health officials.
“We’re been working with schools to send out reminders,” said Bobbi Koerperich, health officer at the Decatur County Health Department. “I don’t think the percentage is that low.”
Koerperich said the majority of the parents that health staff talk to are open to getting vaccinations. The health department is offering influenza vaccinations at the school next week, she said.
Low vaccination rates endanger herd immunity, which occurs when enough people in a population are immune that the spread of the disease is stopped. Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2020, but measles cases surged in 2025, including in Kansas.
Measles vaccine coverage dropped from 94.5% in Kansas in the 2019-20 school year to 90.6% in 2024-25, KDHE data said.
Hawkinson said the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, commonly called the MMR, is safe.
“We know that they are safe and they are effective, but now what we are seeing is a conscious dismantling of the vaccination strategies, of the continued information to try and dissuade people from getting vaccinations,” he said. “If this continues, in my opinion, probably in the next five to 10 years, (this will be) the largest public health experiment in recent times that we have seen, because of the continued decrease in vaccination rates and increase in exemptions.”
19 comments:
Fools, all of them.
This is what happens when people are uneducated 🤷♂️
Imagine taking medical advice from RFK Jr. 🤣
Cooties are bouta have a record year
Imagine being able to make the choice instead of being forced to, what a concept.
Nice to live in a free country again….
Make measles great again
Further indisputable evidence we're turning into a third world country under the authoritarian leadership of president orange peel and his crazyass kennedy sidekick.
Everyone gets to make their own decisions, good or bad. You make it, you live with it or die with it. Both, actions and none-actions have consequences. I do remember all these people who got Covid and was in their hospital rooms with families looking in their windows or standing outside their isolated rooms, everyone praying to save their lives and the majority of them dying telling everyone to get your Covid Shot - but you get to make your own life and death decisions, Good Luck. Just make sure you have your life insurance, medical insurance, estate and burial plans figured out and paid for before it is too late.
Yes Covid was so dangerous it only killed you in the hospital… Just think about that for a second!
5:41 - Most vents and CPB (cardiopulmonary bypass machines) require hospitalization. Due to requiring constant monitoring by hospital staff this is not done in the home, therefore, majority of patients did die in hospitals. No great mystery or conspiracy theory that you seemed to be eluding to, as why more covid patients died in hospitals.
https://www.facebook.com/KevOnStage/videos/people-in-the-80s-react-to-new-laws-against-drinking-and-driving/2552216204947835/
6:23 There is no way we will agree with each other. Just go get you another booster…..
5:41PM - What a Genuis, Why did everyone run to the Hospitals for a Magical Cure, when they got Covid, because that is what people do - they run for shelter and help - yet it was too late for them - they should have done things in advance - as with anything people procrastinate, lie to themselves, and believe it is not going to happen to them - then when they are laying their dying, asking God for Miracle and God looks down and says - I gave you plenty of Opportunities to "Save Yourself", and it was your own Human "Free Will", that will end up Killing You. So, get your Shots or Not that is your Decision - your "Free Will", just don't - whine and cry - when Death Comes Knocking for you or your family. That includes all your Children's Vaccines too.
10:25 - not a problem for me. You wasn’t with any of these patients as they begged you to save them, knowing there was sometimes very little that could be done, as I was along with countless other medical personnel. I’ve already received my newest boosters, thank you for the reminder. I have to always be ready to care for patients who have so little regard for their own lives as well as for others lives, such as people like yourself. Here’s hoping you won’t ever need my medical services, but should you, we are always prepared to help.
11:10 - Exactly true. Thank you!!
Jesus take the wheel!
Guide us and our car safely to wherever we need to go so that our whole family can be properly vaccinated against all these preventable diseases.
Thank you Lord!
1110,312. You deplorable scmucks think only of yourself and don't give a schitt that you, yourself, could actually be passing on a disease that has the potential to kill an important person in your life or someone else. Stay in your maga cave of denial and hate and don't ever come out.
No Kings!!!
7:19 - I believe that you need to go back and thoroughly reread the comments posted by 11:10 and 3:12. Neither comment was pro maga in any form. Neither of us gave any indication of being anti vaccine, since both of us encouraged using your “free will” and getting your vaccines to prevent untimely sorrows and death. Please, I beg all of you to completely read all comments with an open mind before commenting or responding inappropriately. When you ass u me too quickly you know what that makes you, correct??
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