Whidbey residents may be surprised to learn which school district has the highest rate of vaccination compliance.

During this month’s meeting of the county’s Community Health Advisory Board, or CHAB, epidemiologists gave a detailed report on immunization status for students enrolled in public schools.

Data from the state Department of Health and the CDC over the past few years indicates that Island County lags a little behind the state when it comes to childhood immunizations, though Epidemiologist Melissa Hartmann said looking at school vaccination completeness is more appropriate when looking at childhood vaccination rates.

In Washington, vaccines required for students in preschool through 12th grade include DTaP/Tdap (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis), Hepatitis B, Hib (Haemophilius infleunzae type B), MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), PCV (pneumococcal conjugate), polio and varicella (chickenpox), according to the state Department of Health. The COVID-19 vaccine is not required.

Each student has one overall immunization status: complete, out of compliance, exempt and conditional. Out of compliance students lack required documentation of immunity for any one or more of the vaccine-preventable diseases, while those who are exempt have a completed certificate of exemption for any one or more of the immunization requirements. Students with conditional status are making satisfactory progress toward full immunization by continuing a vaccination schedule and are within the recommended interval for the next dose.

The percentage of students with “complete” status decreased in 2021-22 when compared to 2020-21, though vaccination rates rose from 2021-22 through 2023-24.

Oak Harbor School District has the highest rates of vaccination than any other school district in the county. Hartmann explained that Oak Harbor is typically above the state level, while the other school districts are usually below it. Over the past five years, the percentage of Oak Harbor kindergarteners with complete immunization status has hovered between about 90% and 95%, depending on the year.

The same holds true for the percentage of Oak Harbor seventh graders with complete immunization status.

With both kindergarteners’ and seventh graders’ immunization statuses, Coupeville School District has the lowest rate among all the county’s school districts. There was a noticeable dip in the 2021-22 school year for Coupeville kindergarteners, which Hartmann theorized could be because the school district was transitioning from doing the reporting through school modules.

Exact data on each school district’s vaccination rates is available on the School Immunization Data Dashboard on the state Department of Health’s website.

Dr. Robert Wagner, a pediatrician on Whidbey since 1989, spoke about the importance of childhood immunizations. Before vaccination programs, kids often spent a week in bed to recover from various infections. Children underwent regular invasive testing that included hard levers, spinal taps, x-rays and urinary system access to prove they weren’t septic.

“Current providers really don’t have that experience unless you’re working in a big emergency room or a pediatric hospital,” he said. “So if we have a return of these issues, we don’t have the training in communities to handle these sorts of things.”

In the 1990s on Whidbey, Wagner said, the pneumococcal vaccine came into use and benefitted not only children but also their grandparents. Around that time, Andrew Jeremy Wakefield, whose research has since been discredited, published an article suggesting that vaccines cause autism, which went viral.

“This really took off, and the scientific community was very slow to respond, just because they don’t have the kind of marketing and media presence, and also they’re used to methodical scientific proving, and now you’re having to prove a negative,” Wagner said.

All of these things have come together for a fair amount of misinformation, he added. Current outbreaks of measles have caused one death in the U.S. this year so far. The first case in the state was identified in a King County infant last month.

Another vaccine Wagner has seen resistance to is the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine, which he said parents are reluctant to discuss something that could be sexually related with their young teens. A court case claiming it caused ovarian failure – which ended up getting thrown out because there was no merit to it on a scientific basis – was hyped up in the media.

“These things really have repercussions that are long-lasting,” he said, adding that he has heard from other pediatricians that more people are coming in to get exemptions from vaccines, but they don’t want to discuss why they are doing so.