February 15 was School Exclusion Day for Oregon children —the deadline to be up to date on all required vaccines or else be barred from their school or childcare facility. KLCC checked in on how Lane County students fared.
Assisting public and private K-12 schools, pre-schools, Head Start and day care facilities, Lane County Public Health officials culled through the immunization records of nearly 50,000 students and children. Of them, 1,621 kids were not up to date. Notice letters were sent, giving parents time to get their student vaccinated by Exclusion Day.
But not all of them did.
“250 students were excluded,” Nicole Sticka told KLCC. She heads Lane County’s Communicable Disease Unit. She agreed that statistically, 250 out of 50,000 sounds like success—but Sticka prefers a very different number of unvaccinated children.
“Zero would be the best number,” she said. “You know-- what we have vaccines for is to protect them and our community from diseases that can cause a lot of unnecessary harm to a child.”
Sticka said once a student’s vaccinations are up to date, they may return to school or daycare.
Immunizations required between age 2 months and starting pre-Kindergarten
| DTaP | Polio | Varicella | MMR | Hepatitis B | Hepatitis A | Hib | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 - 3 month | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 4 - 5 months | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||
| 6 - 14 months | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||
| 15 months | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | ||
| 18 months | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1-2 | 3-4 |
| 18 months - Pre-Kindergarten | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3-4 |
Immunizations required for Kindergarten through 12th Grade
| DTaP | Polio | Varicella | MMR | Hepatitis B | Hepatitis A | Hib | Tdap | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K or Grades 1 - 6 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | ||
| Grades 7 - 12 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
