Vaccination rates for childhood diseases have been in decline since the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

The Data: The percentage of kindergarteners nationally who received the measles vaccine fell from 95% in 2019 to 93% in 2024, with polio and whooping cough vaccines following similar downward trends, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

For Context: These percentages vary from state to state, though vaccine exemptions rose in both blue and red states. Some infectious disease experts are concerned at how this decline threatens “herd immunity,” which requires 92% of the population to be inoculated. Lower vaccination rates could pose a risk for new outbreaks of these mostly-eradicated diseases. Incoming President Trump’s pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is often described as a vaccine skeptic; in a recent interview, Kennedy said vaccines were “not going to be taken away from anybody,” but stressed a purported need to focus on “huge deficits” with vaccine safety.

How News Outlets Covered It: The New York Times (Lean Left bias) suggested the “Trump administration could encourage anti-vaccine sentiment and undermine state programs.” The Times featured a graph that exaggerated the declining rates by truncating the y-axis of the graph at 91%, which is still a high vaccination rate. In statistics, any graph that doesn't begin at 0% on the y-axis can be considered misleading. As of this writing, no outlets rated Lean Right or Right reported on the news. 

A Different Take: Writing for UnHerd (Center), columnist Karol Markowicz (Right) framed the issue as less about partisanship and more about a lack of public trust in health authorities. “Authorities in red states might be making it easier to obtain the exemptions,” Markowitz wrote. “Or it could be that the great migration of the Covid era has reshuffled people into regions that more closely match their opinion on the issue of vaccinations… The bottom line, though, is that these and other factors wouldn’t be as significantly in play but for the breakdown in trust between many families and health agencies.”