The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a series of setbacks to children’s health. For most of last year, pediatricians reported that parents concerned about possible virus exposure in doctors’ offices were putting off necessary regular checkups for their children. Now, doctors report an alarming drop in the number of children showing up for routine childhood immunizations.

Doctors and public health officials are particularly worried as the new school year begins that many children do not have the vaccinations they need to head back to class. Most states, including Pennsylvania, require children to be immunized for common childhood illnesses such as measles and polio to attend school.

In the waning days of summer break, however, pediatricians said they were seeing a decline in the usual number of appointments for children who need those vaccinations.

Already, our children are risking needless exposure to the deadly coronavirus due to mask-aversion and adult vaccine refusal — a deadly combination that is delivering yet another wave of COVID-19 to our country. We cannot let the irrational misinformation campaign associated with coronavirus vaccines to weaken our nation further to the plight of childhood illnesses that were ably defeated generations ago by safe and effective vaccines.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention review of vaccinations administered by federal programs showed that immunizations plummeted after the coronavirus crisis locked down much of the U.S. in March of last year. That is understandable considering the risks, particularly in the earliest days of the crisis.

The agency then noticed that the pace of vaccinations for routine childhood illnesses began to recover in the spring of 2021, but the rebound is not enough to catch up. That means many children do not have the vaccinations they should have.

Officials blame both a backlog in delayed doctor visits as well as growing vaccine hesitancy that springs from misinformation and disinformation about the coronavirus vaccine.

In Pennsylvania, when state health authorities put out their regular back-to-school reminder for parents to get their children scheduled for routine vaccinations, they were bombarded with online comments falsely confusing these immunizations with COVID-19 vaccines, mask mandates and other unrelated hot-button virus topics.

Children younger than 12 are not even eligible to get coronavirus vaccines in the U.S., but they now face new dangers from other potentially deadly contagious diseases if vaccination rates for those illnesses slip.

As a nation, we must not allow irrational fear of the COVID-19 vaccines to erode our confidence in vaccines that have been around for decades. We must remember and draw on the country’s experience of nearly eradicating diseases that once ravaged previous generations thanks to effective vaccines.

— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS