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From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— While Wisconsin’s kindergarten vaccination rates against measles, mumps and rubella saw a slight uptick for the latest school year, state health officials say they’re still too low to keep children safe.
The latest CDC figures show MMR vaccination rates among kindergarteners in the state rose slightly from 84.8% in the 2024-25 school year to 85.1% for 2025-26. The state Department of Health Services calls it a “positive step” but notes it’s below the 95% needed to keep measles from spreading.
“It still leaves too many children without protection,” Wisconsin Immunization Program Manager Dr. Stephanie Schauer said yesterday during an online briefing. “At the same time, the percentage of Wisconsin kindergarteners with a waiver for one or more required vaccines increased from 6.3% to 7.3%.”
Waiver usage has been rising since the COVID-19 pandemic, Schauer said, attributing the change to “increased hesitancy” about vaccines as well as more misinformation circulating.
“Parents are trying to get answers and if they’re not getting clear answers, or it’s confusing, they may not be vaccinating,” she said.
The agency’s latest appeal to parents urging vaccination as the new school year gets underway comes amid an outbreak of measles in southwestern Wisconsin. At latest count, the state has had at least 144 measles cases so far this year, all but one of which were among unvaccinated people. Four cases have now resulted in hospitalization.
“When a highly contagious disease like measles reaches a community with lower vaccination coverage, it has more opportunities to spread,” Schauer said.
Along with the harm caused directly by a measles infection, she noted the virus can also disrupt the body’s ability to fight off other infections much later, a phenomenon she called immune amnesia.
“Both in the short term, and the couple of months after you’ve had measles and have gotten sick from the acute illness, but also several years out,” she said. “Things that you once had the ability to respond to … people are becoming sick with things that they shouldn’t be coming sick with.”
Track the latest measles data here.
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