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Kindergartners in the United States fell behind on routine childhood vaccinations during the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday, a slide that experts attributed to skipped checkups and to a groundswell of resistance to Covid-19 shots spilling into unease about other vaccines. During the 2020-21 school year, about 94 percent of kindergartners had the required vaccines, a drop of roughly one percentage point from the previous school year, the C.D.C. said. That pulled coverage levels below the target of 95 percent, raising fears that life-threatening childhood illnesses like measles could at some point become more prevalent. (Mueller and Hoffman, 4/21)

Childhood immunization dropped dramatically at the start of the pandemic as families stayed at home, and have been slow to catch up. Over the last two years, the CDC saw a more than 10 percent drop from pre-pandemic levels in states’ orders for Vaccines for Children, the federal program through which about half the children in the country are immunized. The drop in the 2020-2021 school year “means that there’s 35,000 more children in the United States during this time period without documentation of complete vaccination against common diseases,” said Georgina Peacock, acting director of the Immunization Services Division, during a briefing on Thursday. (Mahr, 4/21)

In addition, almost 400,000 fewer children than expected entered kindergarten and their vaccination status is uncertain, the CDC said. ... “We haven’t seen outbreaks and that’s probably representative of the fact that families were staying home during the pandemic,” said Dr. Georgina Peacock, the CDC’s director of immunization services. But authorities worry that could change if kids remain behind on their shots as more people return to normal routines. (Tanner, 4/21)

A COVID-19 vaccine for children under five might not be approved for emergency use until June, Anthony Fauci said on Thursday. Fauci, the chief medical adviser for President Biden, told CNN’s Kasie Hunt that health regulators were concerned because vaccine makers Moderna and Pfizer were creating slightly different products, which required additional scrutiny. (Dress, 4/21)

A new study of 23.1 million Scandinavians suggests that the risk of myocarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination is low but highest in 16- to 24-year-old males after the second dose. The results were published yesterday in JAMA Cardiology. .(Van Beusekom, 4/21)