W.Va. should remain the gold standard for vaccine policy

The overall coverage is about the same as the percentage reported the year before. However, in the 2019-2020 academic year, the rate was about 95%.

The rate of individuals exempt from vaccinations is about 3%, about 0.4 percentage points higher than the previous year.

At the state level, exemptions increased in 41 states. In 10 of those states, the exemption rate is greater than 5%, according to the report.

While these rates of vaccination sound high, there is a concern that comes with vaccine coverage lowering and exemptions increasing.

According to a section of the report outlining the impact of the findings on public health practice:

“Exemptions (greater than) 5% limit the level of achievable vaccination coverage, which increases the risk for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

With vaccines that children are required to get before attending school — those for tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella and others — those vaccines are incredibly effective.

The key to keeping those illnesses at bay is simple — everyone should get vaccinated. Unfortunately, not everyone can; certain medical conditions make the vaccines dangerous to a person’s health.

That is why herd immunity plays such an important role in prevention of these diseases.

In essence, herd immunity means that if the vast majority of people are vaccinated, those who are not vaccinated are still protected, since no one else is carrying or spreading it.

The fewer people are vaccinated, the less effective herd immunity is.

For those who medically cannot be vaccinated, herd immunity is the only defense they have against severe illness — or worse.

That’s why I was deeply concerned while watching the West Virginia Legislature’s interim meeting of the Joint Committee on Children and Families last month.

West Virginia is one of just five states in the nation that do not allow religious and/or philosophical exemptions for required vaccinations — a policy that earns the state acclaim.

“West Virginia is recognized nationally as having an exemplary immunization model, with four states recently changing their laws to mirror West Virginia’s,” Shannon McBee, a state epidemiologist, told the committee.

While most committee members’ questions and comments did not directly indicate a desire to change the state’s vaccine requirements — though many seemed to imply it — Sen. Mike Azinger, R-Wood, made some very direct statements.

“This is arrogance,” Azinger said during the meeting. “We live in America, and if a parent says that they don’t want their kid to have a vaccine, they have a Constitutional right to do that.

“Here we sit, one of these little clumps of states that says ‘You can’t have a religious exemption’ — Lord have mercy, our country was founded on religion, right? First Amendment.

“This is just not acceptable… This needs to be fixed.”

This year’s regular legislative session saw 21 separate bills introduced regarding vaccination. While many were in direct response to COVID-19 vaccines specifically, eight were about school vaccination requirements, with five aiming to establish religious and/or philosophical exemptions at various levels.

While I was concerned by those bills at the time, I was relieved that none of them made much progress through the legislative process.

But for a joint committee to hold an interim meeting on the issue seems to indicate that lawmakers are at the very least seriously considering bringing the issue up again in the 2024 session.

Non-medical vaccine requirement exemptions are often framed as being an issue of personal liberty and freedom. But the fact of the matter is that a choice not to vaccinate doesn’t just affect those who make that choice — mass vaccination protects those who can’t be inoculated, and fewer people being vaccinated endangers them.

With all of the ways West Virginia falls short, the state is seen as a leader when it comes to vaccine policy. We should all urge the Legislature not to take that away.