Comment Re:Higher immunization rates in South America than (Score 1) 545
Right, we can't stop ALL imports, just like we can't vaccinate EVERY local child. I'd suspect fairly simple measures, like requiring shots in a time-effective fashion as a condition of a visa, would stop at least 90% of that 80% though.
So, I ran the numbers. Here they are for the individual vaccines CDPH tracks: DTP 92.4%, Polio 93.1%, MMR 92.6%, HepB 94.9%, Varicella 95.5%. These are numbers for the incoming 2014 kindergarten class. That 90% number is kids that are up-to-date on all five.
The real elephant in the room is conditional enrollees. They make up 6.8%. Like PBE kids, it's not clear if they are vaccinated or not. There simply aren't records for these kids. If school districts would grow a set and not let these kids enter school, that would be far more effective than SB277 (bill in the OP article). The conflict is most conditional enrollees are in underprivileged areas where getting a kid to school is considered a victory. If we start throwing them out of school, equal access to education becomes an issue.
Your point about making vaccines more available and publicized I agree with completely.
Conditional enrollees has the same issue regarding geographic concentration. Because of this alone, I still find targeting PBEs a near complete waste of time. According to CDPH data, about 118 schools (out of 7464) have a PBE rate >=30%, representing 0.4% of incoming kindergartners. 388 schools have a conditional enrollment rate >=30%, representing 2.4% of incoming kindergartners (3x and 6x of PBE respectively). Getting all the PBE schools counts for something, but very little.
I certainly recognize that SB277 has benefits to public health. I just hope people realize that those benefits are really, really, really small and the hit to civil liberties and public education that we're taking to get those benefits is not.
So, I ran the numbers. Here they are for the individual vaccines CDPH tracks: DTP 92.4%, Polio 93.1%, MMR 92.6%, HepB 94.9%, Varicella 95.5%. These are numbers for the incoming 2014 kindergarten class. That 90% number is kids that are up-to-date on all five.
The real elephant in the room is conditional enrollees. They make up 6.8%. Like PBE kids, it's not clear if they are vaccinated or not. There simply aren't records for these kids. If school districts would grow a set and not let these kids enter school, that would be far more effective than SB277 (bill in the OP article). The conflict is most conditional enrollees are in underprivileged areas where getting a kid to school is considered a victory. If we start throwing them out of school, equal access to education becomes an issue.
Your point about making vaccines more available and publicized I agree with completely.
Conditional enrollees has the same issue regarding geographic concentration. Because of this alone, I still find targeting PBEs a near complete waste of time. According to CDPH data, about 118 schools (out of 7464) have a PBE rate >=30%, representing 0.4% of incoming kindergartners. 388 schools have a conditional enrollment rate >=30%, representing 2.4% of incoming kindergartners (3x and 6x of PBE respectively). Getting all the PBE schools counts for something, but very little.
I certainly recognize that SB277 has benefits to public health. I just hope people realize that those benefits are really, really, really small and the hit to civil liberties and public education that we're taking to get those benefits is not.