(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told reporters Wednesday that the Fed staff no longer forecasts a recession for the U.S., and there is a chance inflation could return to target without high job losses.
In April, the Federal Reserve staff expected the regional bank crisis to tip the economy into recession, according to a Fed minutes release. Powell indicated during his news conference with reporters that the spring prediction may not be the case.
“The staff now has a noticeable slowdown in growth starting later this year in the forecast, but given the resilience of the economy recently, they are no longer forecasting a recession,” he said.
The Fed staff is an independent staff within the Federal Reserve that makes its own projections on the economy. Their forecasts are not the official position of the Federal Open Market Committee, the body that determines rate hike decisions.
Earlier in the day, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate another 0.25% to a 22-year high of between 5.25% and 5.5%.
The central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged in June, ending a string of 10 consecutive rate increases that stretched back to March 2020.
Powell said the impacts of the current hikes are still working through the economy, and he could not use the word “optimism” to describe the trajectory of the economy.
Powell did leave the door open to more rate hikes saying they will react to the data. He pointed out that there will be two jobs’ reports and two inflation reports before the next Fed decision.
(UPPER MAKEFIELD, Pa.) — A search for a 9-month-old boy who was washed away in a Pennsylvania flash flood 12 days ago with his mother and 2-year-old sister has been suspended after authorities said Wednesday they “exhausted” all attempts to locate the child’s remains.
The Upper Makefield Police Department said the search for the baby, Conrad Sheils, has ended after a massive effort to find him — involving hundreds of search-and-rescue workers — was unsuccessful.
“With broken hearts, we regretfully announce that the active search for Conrad has concluded,” the police department said in a statement Wednesday afternoon after notifying Conrad’s family.
Conrad was swept away in a deluge that hit Bucks County on July 15. His mother, 32-year-old Katie Seley, and his sister, 2-year-old Matilda “Mattie” Sheils, were also washed away in the flood waters and drowned, officials said.
Matilda’s body was recovered from the Delaware River on Friday about 30 miles from where she was swept away in the flood waters, officials said. Seley’s remains were found a day after the tragedy unfolded, according to police.
The children and their mother went missing when they and their family were caught in the flash flood while driving on Route 532 to a barbecue near Upper Makefield Township, authorities said. More than 7 inches of rain fell within 45 minutes, causing a creek to spill its banks and generating a “wall of water” that took drivers on Route 532, also known as Washington Crossing Road, by surprise, officials said.
Seley died after she grabbed Mattie and Conrad and tried to escape their vehicle, but ended up being swept away in the violent weather event, officials said.
The children’s father, Jim Sheils, and grandmother grabbed the couple’s 4-year-old son, and escaped the car, officials said. They were all found alive.
The family is from Charlestown, South Carolina, and were visiting relatives in Bucks County when they were caught in the deadly storm, police said.
Eleven vehicles were washed away in the deluge, one found 1.5 miles from where it was swept into the creek that feeds into the Delaware River, officials said.
Four other people were killed in the Bucks County flooding. They were identified by the Bucks County Coroner’s Office as Enzo Depiero, 78, and Linda Depiero, 74, both of Newtown Township, Pennsylvania; Susan Barnhardt, 53, of Titusville, New Jersey; and Yuko Love, 64, of Newtown Township.
The coroner’s office said all of the victims died from drowning.
News that the search for Conrad has been suspended came just days after community residents and relatives of those killed held a candlelight vigil Sunday night at the 9/11 Memorial Garden of Reflection in Yardley, Pennsylvania. Dahlia Galindez, the grandmother of Mattie and Conrad and Seley’s mother, spoke at the vigil.
“I’m a lifelong learner and I never thought I would have to learn how to live through a tragedy like this,” Galindez said.
Once she got out of the car, Galindez said, “One minute it was inches deep, a minute later it was overhead”
“As I got into the water, I was pulled under. I was eventually able to hold onto a tree and I think that was my only injuries, miraculously enough,” Galindez said. “I have a few bruises and a few scraps. I guess I get to stay here for a while. I kind of wanted to be with Katie and the children.”
Mattie and Conrad’s uncle, Paul Sheils, also spoke at the vigil, praising the firefighters and rescue crews who searched for Seley and her children.
“This was not just another day at the office for these brave men and women. Many of the rescuers we visited had tears in their eyes,” Paul Sheils said. “They were all treating the search as if they were looking for their own children and it showed.”
(WASHINGTON) — As a dangerous heat wave continues to plague tens of millions of Americans across the country, one Texas lawmaker is pushing for heat protections, including water breaks, for those who work outside in the brutal conditions.
Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat, organized a so-called “thirst strike” on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where he says he didn’t drink water or take a break all day in order to call attention to the issue.
Last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that overrides city and county ordinances, which critics say will also strip local protections in place for outdoor workers, such as mandated water breaks.
The law goes into effect on Sept. 1 and would put an end to safeguards such as the ordinance the City of Austin passed in 2010 that requires rest and water breaks on construction sites for at least 10 minutes every four hours. The City of Dallas passed a similar ordinance in 2015.
Casar spoke to “GMA3” on Wednesday about why he’s urging the federal government to take action.
DEMARCO MORGAN: So we talk about the heat and this extreme heat that’s pretty much taken over the summer. But you can’t help but think about the workers who have to be in these conditions and in these elements here. How dire is this situation?
CASAR: Everyone deserves a water break. Working should not be a death sentence. But, unfortunately, in places like Texas, where I’ve grown up, it is way hotter than normal, and we’ve had people lose their lives delivering the mail, pouring concrete, fixing electrical lines. And we need to protect those workers.
But tragically, this month, the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, chose to sign a law that rips workers’ right to taking a water break away from them. We’ve had local protections in Texas guaranteeing people rest breaks from the heat, and the governor took that away.
And so that’s why I did a thirst strike all day yesterday, standing on the Capitol steps, not drinking water, not taking a break, demanding and urging that we fix that problem by passing a law protecting workers from the heat or having the president use his authority to guarantee a federal heat protection mandate for all Americans right now.
EVA PILGRIM: Let’s talk about that thirst strike that you were just mentioning. What was the goal there? What kind of attention were you hoping to get?
CASAR: Before I was an elected official, I was a labor organizer, and we would organize workers to participate in these thirst strikes across Texas, standing in front of city halls, not drinking water, not eating food, standing in the sun. And those thirst strikes helped us successfully pass water break protections in multiple cities across Texas, and now those protections are being taken away in a historic heat wave.
And that’s why we launched another thirst strike now in Washington, D.C., because the president has the authority to finally put in a federal rule guaranteeing everybody the right to shade, the right to come off of a scaffold if you’re starting to feel sick in the sun.
We know that there are big corporate interests that have been pushing back against any kinds of these rules getting passed. That’s why there is no federal protection for water and protection for workers in the heat right now.
But we can change that by raising our voices. And I think the voices of most Americans can overcome the corporate lobbying that has held back workers’ rights for so long.
MORGAN: So congressman, why are we so behind in federal laws when it comes to protecting workers?
CASAR: We had yesterday, on the Capitol steps, farm workers who talked about cutting onions in the sun and fields where there is no shade and where they weren’t being provided water.
Construction workers and warehouse workers who were pushed to work faster to finish a project and having their breaks cut. Flight attendants who had been put on a plane over 110 degrees that they didn’t want to pull the flight attendants off of, because they wanted to take off, even though the AC wasn’t working.
Ultimately, that’s when profits are getting put before people, and it’s our role as the government not just to take care of companies’ bottom lines, but to take care of the people that make our economy work.
So I think we have to reorient our priorities as a Congress and start focusing on the working people that make the economy work, not just on big businesses’ bottom line.
PILGRIM: Do you think fixing this is as simple as just federally mandating water breaks? How would you enforce something like that?
CASAR: In the city of Austin – I represent the city of Austin and the city of San Antonio in Texas – we passed a water break ordinance and that required education. We had posters at every construction site telling people they had the right to water. There was the ability to enforce this by people calling in complaints. But what we saw from a peer-reviewed study was that construction workers in Austin were 30% more likely to say they were starting to get water breaks after that law passed than before, because laws set norms.
But we also should do the right thing by one another. But I think that it’s really important for us to have a federal heat standard so that workers know they have the basic right. They can raise their hand and say, I have the right to come off this scaffold. I have a right to take a break from the warehouse and get a drink of water. And they don’t have that right, right now.
In some Texas cities, they currently do, but that’s being stripped away by the governor. And to me, that’s not acceptable. Let’s take this opportunity – if he’s trying to take this right away in a historic heat wave – for the president to step in and do the right thing or the Congress to step in.
We had over 110 members of the United States Congress and U.S. senators sign a letter alongside me that I wrote this Monday saying they want to see this heat standard put in place. So it’ll only take a small number of Republicans to sign onto a bill and we can get this fixed.
MORGAN: So with extreme weather conditions seemingly getting worse, how do we protect workers in the future?
CASAR: I grew up in Texas, and we know it is hot, but it has not been this hot before. We had the two hottest weeks in San Antonio’s recorded history the other day – temperatures crossing 110 degrees in the Rio Grande Valley, and it’s only going to get worse.
So we need more workers’ rights as we face this climate crisis, not fewer worker rights. We need to guarantee people a living wage, guarantee people a union and a voice at work.
On top of these water break protections, we, I believe, as a Democratic Party, but frankly as a government, need to start focusing more on how the climate crisis is going to hurt workers.
Because there’s going to be worse winters like the power grid failure we had in Texas and worse summers. We’ve got to address worsening weather in our community, and we’ve got to protect people on the job as things get worse.
Nero, the emperor of Rome from AD 54 until AD 68, reportedly uttered those famous last words before his death in exile. Experts believe he may have left behind evidence of his love of the arts in the form of a theater he built near what today is the Vatican.
An archaeological excavation carried out in the courtyard of the frescoed Palazzo della Rovere has brought to light structures and decorations that experts say could be the remains of that theater.
Daniela Porro, the special superintendent of Rome, said Wednesday this “exceptional” discovery is believed to be the place where Nero held rehearsals for poetry and singing performances, which were mentioned in Roman writings, but until now never located.
Archaeologists have been working on the site since 2020 and say they’ve found part of the hemicycle-shaped seating section, along with elegant columns in precious and valuable marbles, refined decorations in gold-leaf on stucco and storage rooms for costumes and scenery.
The dig, which was carried out in a circumscribed area within the walls of the grand palazzo, situated on Via della Conciliazione, just a few steps from St. Peter’s Square, also gifted other rich historical findings. These include the possible remains of the Horti di Agrippina, which is where Caligula built a large circus for horse racing, as well as traces of the production and pilgrimage activities from the medieval age and even artifacts from the 15th century.
Archaeologists say they’re particularly thrilled to have found rare specimens of medieval glass goblets, cooking pots to make bread in, coins, bits of musical instruments and combs made from bone, “tools” used to make rosary beads and small insignia of medieval Christian devotion worn on pilgrims’ clothing.
Archaeologist Marzia Di Mento, who is in charge of the dig, says that the findings will take years to study.
“It is a superb dig, one that every archaeologist dreams of…..being able to dig in this built-up historically-rich area is so rare,” she told reporters.
Archeologists say work is still in progress to study, catalogue and analyze all the findings before the area will be covered over for protection and the grand palazzo and garden restored to its original Renaissance grandeur.
Part of the building will become a Four Seasons hotel that is expected to open in 2025.
Local officials say the artifacts will be put on display and all the dig’s findings put in a city-run public databank to add to the wealth of information gathered over the years on life in Rome throughout the centuries.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Transportation on Wednesday announced a rule that will require airlines to make lavatories on new single-aisle planes large enough for two people to enter in a move to make bathrooms more accessible.
“Traveling can be stressful enough without worrying about being able to access a restroom; yet today, millions of wheelchair users are forced to choose between dehydrating themselves before boarding a plane or avoiding air travel altogether,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a press release announcing the rule.
The rule was authorized through the Air Carrier Access Act, and it specifies that the lavatories will need to be large enough passengers with disabilities and their attendants to enter and maneuver within the space.
In twin-aisle aircraft, accessible lavatories have been required since 1990. Yet as the range and fuel efficiency of single-aisle aircraft have increased, these planes now take longer flights. That can leave passengers with disabilities with no way to use the bathroom for hours on end.
John Morris, the founder of WheelchairTravel.org, is a triple amputee who travels frequently. Next week, he’s flying from Boston to Los Angeles on a plane without an accessible lavatory.
“Denying someone the ability to go to the bathroom is certainly a form of torture that has been used by rogue individuals in human history,” Morris said. “I just don’t think that that should be the case on an airplane.”
Commercial aircraft have a lifespan of decades. That means that years into the future, without retrofitting the aircraft, disabled travelers will still encounter inaccessible lavatories — a problem Morris himself has encountered. He recounted a trip he took in 2016 from Seattle to Tokyo on a wide-body airplane. Halfway over the Pacific, Morris, who said that airlines are opaque about sharing accessibility information before passengers book flights, discovered the aircraft he was on had been delivered before the accessible lavatory rule went into effect in 1990. There was no bathroom he could use.
“We need to ensure that people have the ability to go to the bathroom when they need to, without significant barriers being in place between them and carrying out that bodily function that is something that every human being needs to do,” said Morris.
Passengers won’t see these changes anytime soon, since the requirement increasing the lavatory size applies to aircraft ordered 10 years after the rule goes into effect.
“We’ve got to wait and that’s not great — but I’m going to balance this a little bit and say 10 years is not a long time in aviation,” said Chris Wood, the founder of the advocacy organization Flying Disabled. “In my heart, I wanted at least maybe three or five years for this to start to happen.”
(NEW YORK) — More than a third of the United States is on alert for hot temperatures amid a deadly heat wave that has plagued the country for weeks.
The National Weather Service has issued heat alerts that are in effect Wednesday morning for 120 million Americans across 27 states, from California to Massachusetts.
The weather forecast for Wednesday shows temperatures heating up particularly in the middle of the country, an area that’s had a relatively seasonal summer so far. By the afternoon, temperatures are expected to be near, at or above 100 degrees in cities like Minneapolis, Minnesota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Manhattan, Kansas.
Heat index values — a measure of how hot it really feels when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature — are forecast to be in the 100s throughout the week from Kansas City, Missouri, to Washington, D.C.
The heat is expected to stretch into the Northeast later this week, with temperatures peaking on Friday. New York City could see its first heat wave of the season with high temperatures in the 90s on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. A heat alert will go into effect there on Thursday. Heat index values could range from 100 to 112 degrees in the greater Interstate 95 travel corridor.
The latest forecast shows the heat will start to slowly push back south over the weekend and through much of next week. The Gulf Coast will feel the scorching temperatures, while the North and Northeast cool back down. Even the Southwest may see an end to the record heat streaks.
Arizona’s capital is on a record stretch of 26 consecutive days with temperatures at or above 110 degrees. Overnight temperatures in Phoenix have also not dropped below 90 degrees for at least 16 days. The city hit 119 degrees on Tuesday, breaking a daily record of 116 degrees set in 2018.
Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, has had a total of 25 confirmed heat-associated deaths so far this year. Another 249 deaths are currently under investigation as potentially heat-related, according to data released Wednesday by the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.
Tucson, Arizona, has been at or above 100 degrees for a record 40 days in a row. The city’s previous record of 39 straight days was set in 2013. The city also hit 112 degrees on Tuesday, breaking a daily record of 110 degrees set in 2018.
El Paso, Texas, has been on a record-smashing stretch of 40 consecutive days with temperatures at or above 100 degrees. This is expected to continue this week and may finally come to an end over the weekend. The city’s previous record of 23 consecutive days was set in 1994.
Miami, Florida, has had a heat index high of 100 degrees for a record 45 days in a row, well past the previous record of 32 days set in 2020. The wider Miami-Dade County has been under heat Advisories and excessive heat warnings for a record-smashing 22 days. The previous record was just three days. South Florida, as a whole, is on pace to have its hottest July on record.
Meanwhile, a severe storm system is expected to hit the southern Great Lakes region on Wednesday before taking aim at the Northeast on Thursday.
The weather forecast for Wednesday shows a severe threat of damaging winds, large hail and a few tornadoes from Chicago, Illinois, to Cleveland, Ohio, including the cities of Detroit, Michigan, and Fort Wayne, Indiana. The storm system is expected to enter the Detroit area after 4 p.m. ET before reaching Cleveland after 7 p.m. ET.
That severe threat is forecast to shift over to the Northeast on Thursday, from Washington, D.C., to Portland, Maine. The storm system is expected to enter the area sometime in the afternoon and evening.
(NEW YORK) — Jessica Meise, a Colorado woman who was kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend, was found alive Wednesday and transported to a local hospital, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.
Meise’s condition is unknown at this time, authorities said.
Meise, 43, had been missing since Tuesday after she was forcibly abducted by her ex, 43-year-old Lance Foster, authorities said.
Foster was arrested by West Metro SWAT and is currently in police custody, the sheriff’s office said.
Witnesses told police that Meise was seen being forcibly kidnapped and taken in an unknown direction on Interstate 70, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Arapahoe sheriff’s deputies believe Foster had been stalking Meise prior to her kidnapping.
The Arapahoe sheriff’s office had issued a “be on the lookout” alert and multiple agencies were assisting in the search, trying to locate the pair.
Police said they believed that Meise was in danger.
David Peinado Romero/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration expressed a federal judge’s ruling striking down the Biden administration’s asylum policy that established a “rebuttable presumption” of asylum ineligibility.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said he disagreed with the court’s ruling.
“It does not limit our ability to deliver consequences for unlawful entry,” he said. “Do not believe the lies of smugglers. Those who fail to use one of the many lawful pathways we have expanded will be presumed ineligible for asylum and, if they do not have a basis to remain, will be subject to prompt removal, a minimum five-year bar on admission, and potential criminal prosecution for unlawful reentry.”
Shortly after the decision was handed down, the Justice Department said it stood by the policy.
“We remain confident in our position that the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule is a lawful exercise of the broad authority granted by the immigration laws,” a spokesperson for the Justice Department said.
Immigration advocates, however, see the ruling as a victory.
“The ruling is a victory, but each day the Biden administration prolongs the fight over its illegal ban, many people fleeing persecution and seeking safe harbor for their families are instead left in grave danger,” said Katrina Eiland, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the case. “The promise of America is to serve as a beacon of freedom and hope, and the administration can and should do better to fulfill this promise, rather than perpetuate cruel and ineffective policies that betray it.”
Just hours after Judge Jon Tigar’s ruling on Tuesday blocking the administration’s asylum restrictions, the Justice Department filed a motion to stay the order pending appeal and an emergency motion to shorten the time to grant that stay. The court punted ruling on the emergency motion for another day, saying that the Justice Department did not demonstrate good cause for the court to issue a ruling before the plaintiffs had the chance to voice their opposition and gave them until July 26 at 5 pm to file their response.
Tigar’s Tuesday night ruling found the policy to be “contrary to law” and ordered the policy be ended in two weeks.
“The severity of the agencies’ errors in this case counsels strongly in favor of vacatur. The Rule is both substantively and procedurally invalid. The agencies cannot adopt the same rule on remand; as described above, the Rule is contrary to law,” Tigar, an Obama appointee, wrote.
In the wake of the rollback of Title 42, the Trump administration policy which expelled migrants along the border under the auspices of the pandemic, the Biden administration rolled out a new asylum policy which limited the number of claims that were made at the southern border.
The policy, which took effect after Title 42 ended on May 11, mandated that migrants apply for asylum in the counties that they passed through before reaching the United States. Additionally, migrants would have to use the CBP One App to apply for asylum to control the flow of migrants at the border, according to the administration. It would be in effect for only two years.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 144,571 encounters at the southwest land border in the month of June, marking the lowest monthly total in fiscal year 2023.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration on Tuesday said it was canceling $130 million in federal debt for 7,400 students who went to a Colorado college that the government says lied about its successes.
“These borrowers were lied to, ripped off and saddled with mountains of debt,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.
It’s not the first time the administration has canceled federal loans for people whom the government believes were misled or short-changed by for-profit colleges: So far, the Department of Education has forgiven $14.7 billion in such debt, spread across nearly 1.1 million borrowers, including for those who attended Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute, both of which are now defunct.
Tuesday’s debt relief will be automatic and covers Colorado students of CollegeAmerica who attended between 2006 and July 1, 2020.
The effort also comes on the heels of debt relief actions for people who participated in programs like the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and income-driven repayment loan plans, both of which, the Department of Education has acknowledged, were not working as intended for borrowers.
CollegeAmerica had three locations in Colorado and closed down completely in 2021 after a successful lawsuit brought by the state, according to the Department of Education. (Center for Excellence in Higher Education subsequently appealed.)
“CollegeAmerica knowingly took advantage of students by luring them into high-priced, low-quality programs with promises of high-earning potential and job placement that it knew were not attainable,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a Tuesday news release.
“Protecting borrowers from predatory lending and helping Coloradans navigate through student loan burdens will continue to be a priority for our office,” he said.
The Center for Excellence in Higher Education, which operated CollegeAmerica, could not be reached for comment. The organization sued the Department of Education last year, claiming that the federal government improperly targeted their schools and illegally withheld funds such as reimbursements for student financial aid. The Department of Education is seeking to dismiss the suit.
“While my predecessor looked the other way when colleges defrauded students and borrowers — I promised to take this on directly, and provide borrowers with the relief they need and deserve,” Biden said in his Tuesday statement, swiping at former President Donald Trump. “As long as I am president, we will never stop fighting to deliver relief to borrowers, hold bad actors accountable, and bring the promise of college to more Americans.”
According to the Department of Education, among other misrepresentations, CollegeAmerica was advertising that students would earn high salaries post-grad, when, in fact, graduates earned just $25,000, on average, five years out of school — less than the salaries of high school graduates.
CollegeAmerica also advertised “inflated and falsified job placement rates” of 70%, though the Department of Education said the actual rate was just over half that — 40%.
“This included counting a business administration graduate working as a produce clerk and a medical specialties graduate working as a waiter as successful placements,” the Department of Education said.
In two other examples, according to the department, CollegeAmerica falsely maintained from 2006 to 2010 that one of its programs could “lead to EMT certification” even though “it never offered EMT classes at its Colorado campuses” that would qualify for the state’s certification test. And from 2007 until 2017, CollegeAmerica described a financial assistance program, EduPlan, as “affordable” despite knowing “students were unable to afford [the] loans,” the department said.
The debt relief comes after a multiyear government investigation.
Borrowers will have their federal loans canceled regardless of whether they have filed a borrower defense to repayment application, the Department of Education said. That application is a form people can fill out to report schools for misleading their enrollees.
People will begin to be notified in August if they are approved for cancellation related to CollegeAmerica and see any remaining loan balances zeroed out as well as credit trade lines deleted, the department said, and any payments they made to the department will be refunded.
(NEW YORK) — Several routine childhood vaccines require multiple doses to be effective, but a new study finds children are not receiving all of them.
The study, published in the journal Pediatrics Wednesday, found one in six toddlers between ages 19 months and 35 months started the vaccine series but didn’t complete it, leaving them vulnerable to serious diseases.
Researchers from several institutions, including the University of Montana, the University of Colorado, Kaiser Permanente Colorado and the Yale School of Public Health, looked at data from the 2019 National Immunization Survey for more than 16,000 children.
They looked at vaccine series’ that protects children from 11 different diseases including diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, pneumococcal infections, Haemophilus influenzae type B, hepatitis B, polio, measles, mumps, rubella and varicella.
The study found that only 72.9% of toddlers completed the combined 7-vaccine series and 17.2% — equivalent to one in every six toddlers — initiated, but did not complete, the one or multiple multidose vaccine series.
What’s more, approximately 1.1% of children were completely unvaccinated and 9.9% had not initiated one or more of the seven vaccinations.
“I think the study highlighted a trend that we had been seeing in pediatrics prior to the pandemic,” Dr. Nathaniel Beers, executive vice president of community and population health at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the study, told ABC News.
“I think certainly during the pandemic, we’ve seen actually worsening of this trend and have been doing a lot of work in the last year in particular to across the field of pediatrics to ensure that we were addressing the worsening vaccination rates beyond the those that were highlighted in the study that was published,” he added.
Ninety-three percent of kindergarten-age children had received the recommended vaccines, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted during the 2021–22 school year.
This is lower than both the 94% coverage reported during the 2020–21 school year, and the 95% coverage reported during the 2019–20 school year, prior to the pandemic.
Researchers identified factors for why some children started, but did not complete, the vaccine series including families moving across state lines, number of children in household and lack of health insurance.
“Certainly, maintaining and sharing adequately of medical records creates barriers to ensuring adequate care,” when people move across state lines, Beers said.
He continued, “We know people have been more transient for work or other reasons, and that certainly creates gaps in care for kids, particularly young kids who have frequent immunization needs in the first three years of life.”
Beers said another contributing factor is vaccine hesitancy, which is defined as delaying or refusing vaccination despite their widespread availability.
In 2019, the World Health Organization called vaccine hesitancy one of the top 10 threats to public health because it “threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases.”
We’ve seen vaccine hesitancy play a role in measles outbreaks in the U.S. including a recent outbreak in Columbus, Ohio, where 85 children were infected.
“There’s two components that are why we encourage people to get vaccinated,” Beers said. “So, it’s preventing the disease in yourself, but also preventing the spread of disease in the community.”
This helps create herd immunity, in which enough people have been vaccinated or are immune to disease, which then becomes unable to spread.
To help increase rates, the team re-highlighted some methods including more widespread adoption of systems that remind parents their child is due for or is late receiving their next vaccine dose, expanding vaccines to more places outside of a primary care setting, as well as speaking to hesitant parents.
“We certainly [need to] continue to work on vaccine education, making sure that we are providing that for patients and families,” Beers said. “Even for those families who have previously rejected the opportunity to get vaccines, making sure that we continue to offer them the opportunity to start those, and to continue that dialogue, because people do change their minds and continue to get good high-quality information is an important piece of helping people make a decision to move forward with vaccinations.”
