As school gets underway, data shows more parents are actively avoiding vaccines for their children.
The latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control show 4.2% of kindergartners had at least one vaccine exemption during the 2025-26 school year, up from 3.6% the previous school year.
This comes as two unvaccinated people died of measles in Pennsylvania, the first measles deaths of the year.
A case was also just reported this week in an unvaccinated person in Kane County.
Earlier this month, the president signed an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations. The order also calls to split the MMR vaccine into separate shots, a move that is not supported by scientific evidence.
The order has drawn sharp criticism from pediatricians and public health experts, including in Illinois.
“Right now, it’s a very confusing environment, and there is a lot of conflicting information,” said Dr. Brian Borah, the state epidemiologist.
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Borah says the president’s executive order does not change or impact Illinois’ current recommendations, which endorse the vaccine schedule published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“Prior to this administration, a lot of states, including Illinois, had provisions in which vaccine recommendations were somewhat, or in certain cases, tied directly to national recommendations. We now have a mechanism by which to make an independent recommendation, and we are not tied to federal or national vaccine schedules,” said Borah.
The Illinois Department of Public Health tracks school vaccination coverage on a public dashboard, which shows that immunization rates are slightly higher than the previous school year for 10 of those 11 vaccines.
Almost all statewide childhood immunization rates are above 95% for all students, with the exception of nine counties.
However, requests for exemptions are on the rise.
“Similar to national trends, we have seen an increase in religious exemptions over the past several years. It’s something we are looking very closely at,” said Borah.
“They have been steady over the course of several years, so it’s not something to ignore,” he said. “We are exploring every way we can think of to address all vaccine hesitancy and exemptions across the state.”
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