The measles vaccine.
Starting in August, families will no longer be afforded any leeway in providing proof of exemptions or vaccinations before the start of the school year, according to Lewis County Public Health and Social Services.
Public Health Deputy Director John Abplanalp said that a new state law implementing timeline changes will not give students a one-month grace period from the kickoff of the school year to fulfill their vaccination requirements. These include shots protecting individuals from illnesses, such as polio, hepatitis B and MMR (measles, mumps and rubella).
“Currently, kids have up to 30 days to be in what’s called conditional status before they have to be able to prove immunization,” Abplanalp said. “The conditional status is going to be reserved for kids who are getting caught up because there are certain vaccines that come in a series, where they have to get three shots over the course of, say, six months.”
He also addressed a warning on the part of the Seattle School District advising parents that students without evidence of their vaccination records will be excluded from the classroom, starting Wednesday.
When asked how this would affect local school districts within the county, he explained that while the Seattle district is a bit more uniform, each individual principal in Lewis County can presently make their own decisions as to how they choose to enforce immunization requirements.
“The way we would routinely get involved with this is if we have a vaccine preventable disease reported in someone who attends a school. So, the worst case scenario is if we had a measles case reported to us, we would find out which school … notify the school. They would then need to do some work to see who in their building is not immune because anyone who would have been exposed and not be immune could be excluded for a certain period of time after they’ve been exposed to the disease.” Abplanalp said. “But until there’s that triggering event, which is that disease occurrence, we don’t get involved in each school’s business to monitor them.”
Adna Superintendent James Forrest said his district is following OSPI (Washington Office of Superintendent Public Instruction) guidelines and is in compliance with those instructions.
“All of our students have met the regulations sent down,” he said.
Toledo School District Superintendent Chris Rust said 100 percent of his students are immunized or have qualifying exemptions.
In addition, Rust provided The Chronicle with a section of his District Policy Manual, which states that the district will annually apprise parents of information regarding meningococcal disease, human papilloma virus disease and vaccine information distribution.
As for the effectiveness of state mandated vaccinations, Abplanalp contends that a wide range of infectious diseases have been significantly reduced or eliminated as a result of the required injections. On that note, he mentioned how smallpox has been completely eradicated worldwide.
“The World Health Organization estimates that two to three million deaths a year are prevented by vaccinating,” he said. “That’s a very stark reminder for us that we could slip back to era before vaccinations, where millions of kids died every year. The other thing to think about is that vaccinations also protect other folks in the community, from babies who are too young to be vaccinated and women who can’t get certain vaccines while they’re pregnant or people with compromised immune systems who can’t get vaccinated.”
