Bravo, Massachusetts. Vaccination rates.

Our state certainly isn’t perfect and we debate about plenty of things on this subreddit. But I thought I’d share some positive information about our home state that I found out yesterday at the doctor’s office.

I was actually at my child’s pediatrician for her annual exam. The doctor and I got to talking about all the measles outbreaks going on in Texas, and now New Mexico. I mentioned to the doctor that I assume our kids are safe because they are fully vaccinated but asked if that assumption is true - and if she had any opinions on the vaccination status of me and my husband.

She offered to quickly look up the statistics for our state and shared with me the latest figures she could find from 2022. According to our public health department, 98% of children entering kindergarten that year were vaccinated for MMR (measles, mumps, rubella).

Rates for kids are at a similar level for other vaccines. It was harder for her to see data on adults but she did say that our state had really high vaccination rates for our kids, so herd immunity is strong here.

Way to go, Massachusetts.