FILE photo - An infant receives a routine vaccination.

ALPENA — According to a Capital News Service (CNS) report on March 27, more children are entering school without full vaccinations.

Local and state officials say this puts children at risk.

CNS also cites Michigan’s childhood vaccination waiver rate which rose from 5.7% in 2023 to 6.2% in 2024.

Updated data for this school year will be available in June, but local and state officials say vaccination rates continue to stagnate.

Kelly Girard, District Health Department No. 4 (DHD4) nursing director, told DHD4 health board members in December that the department faces opposition from parents when vaccinating children.

“There’s just a lot of skepticism amongst the generation now with kiddos,” Girard said.

She added that the department has struggled this past year to get schools to reach state mandated requirements for vaccination status among students. Likewise, schools have struggled to reach the required number of vaccination waivers if parents choose not to vaccinate.

Michigan law allows vaccine waivers for medical, religious or philosophical reasons, but since 2014 parents seeking nonmedical waivers must complete an education session with a local health department, according to CSN.

Girard explained that waivers require parents to undergo vaccine education to understand what kind of illnesses that their children may contract if they are not vaccinated.

“You would get education, and the education is really ‘Why it’s so important to be vaccinated,’ and ‘What it can mean if your child doesn’t get vaccinated,’ ‘What diseases and here’s what it looks like.'”

Chelsea Engle, DHD4 health officer, said that the vaccine schedule is overwhelming and can be intimidating to parents.

State health officials say the decline in vaccination rates statewide is adversely affecting communities, according to CSN.

“When we look at vaccination rates for children ages 19 to 35 months, we see far more counties with low vaccination rates than in the past,” Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, MDHHS chief medical executive, said in the CSN report.

According to CSN, the low vaccination rates are being reported in parts of southern Michigan along the Ohio border, the northern Lower Peninsula, and the Upper Peninsula.

“There’s not a single part of the state that has been spared from these declines,” Bagdasarian added.

As of Dec. 31, the state has reported that 72.8% of children in Alpena County, 19 to 35 months old, are fully vaccinated for their recommended age range. In 2019, almost 81% of children in the age group were fully vaccinated.

This vaccination status includes the following: four or more doses of DTaP/DTP/DT; three or more doses of Polio; one or more dose of MMR; three or more doses of Hib; three or more doses of HepB; one or more dose of Varicella; four or more doses of PCV.

Comparatively, 74.8% of children 19 to 35 months old on Medicaid were fully vaccinated in 2025; 80.3% on WIC were fully vaccinated.

For adolescents 13 to 17 years old in Alpena County, 81% were fully vaccinated in 2025. In 2019, 80% of adolescents were fully vaccinated.

This status includes the following: one or more doses of Tdap; three or more doses of Polio; two or more doses of MMR; three or more doses of HepB; two or more doses of varicella vaccine; one or more doses of MenACWY.

Comparatively, only 54.2% of females 13 to 17 years old in Alpena County were fully vaccinated for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in 2025; only 49% of males 13 to 17 years old were fully vaccinated for HPV.

Rates for HPV vaccinations among adolescents were similar in 2019, with Alpena County representing 49.9% and 48.4% among females and males, respectively.

Kayla Wikaryasz can be reached at 989-358-5688 or kwikaryasz@TheAlpenaNews.com.