Decline in Child Vaccination Coverage During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Michigan Care Improvement Registry, May 2016-May 2020.

On March 13, 2020, the United States declared a national state of emergency to control the pandemic spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (1) Public health response measures to mitigate the pandemic have centered on social distancing and quarantine policies, including shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders Michigan implemented a stay-at-home order on March 23, 2020, to facilitate social distancing (2) Such strategies might result in decreased accessibility to routine immunization services, leaving children at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases and their complications (3) To evaluate whether vaccination coverage has changed during the pandemic, data from the Michigan Care Improvement Registry (the state�s immunization information system) (MCIR) were analyzed Changes in vaccine doses administered to children and the effects of those changes on up-to-date status were examined for vaccinations recommended at milestone ages corresponding to the end of an Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendation period for one or more vaccines (4) The vaccination status of milestone age cohorts of children at ages 1, 3, 5, 7, 16, 19, and 24 months was assessed, with each cohort including an average sample size of 9,269 for the study period years 2016�2019, and 9,539 for 2020 Up-to-date status for individual vaccines and the recommended age-based vaccine series* were assessed at a point in time in May 2020 and compared with 1-month age cohort assessments for points in time in May 2016�May 2019 The number of noninfluenza vaccine doses administered and reported to MCIR for children aged ?18 years and aged ?24 months also were examined during January�April 2020, compared with averages for the same period in 2018 and 2019