Hospitals See Diseases Resurge as Vaccinations Decline

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Source: New York Times

Hospitals See Diseases Resurge as Vaccinations Decline

Doctors nationwide are encountering more children with whooping cough, bacterial infections and other serious illnesses, as well as more adults refusing tetanus shots.


A collage illustration of syringes fading away, a newborn baby, an infant's brain scan, a hand holding a bag of donor blood, a child with an IV in a hospital gown and vaccine vials falling. Deanna Donegan/The New York Times; Photographs by Getty

By Maggie Astor and Dani Blum
June 2, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET

Doctors around the country say they are seeing more cases of serious, sometimes life-threatening illnesses that vaccines have long kept at bay, including whooping cough and bacterial infections that can cause pneumonia or meningitis. ... The concern among doctors comes on the heels of a resurgence of measles nationwide, fueled by distrust in vaccines that grew during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Trump have amplified. Public health experts have long seen measles as a harbinger: Because it is so exceptionally contagious, it can be the first disease to spike as vaccination rates broadly decline, and a sign of more to come.

For some of these diseases, national data show clear and substantial increases in recent years; for others, the increases are small, or there are anecdotal indications from doctors on the ground of increases that public statistics don’t currently confirm. ... While most children recover, these diseases aren’t benign. Many children endure extended hospitalizations. Some infections can be fatal.

Dr. Meghan Hofto, a pediatric hospitalist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is one of the doctors who said she is seeing more illnesses that she used to encounter only rarely. This year, she and her colleagues have treated more children than usual with persistent diarrhea. A child with a run-of-the-mill stomach virus might need a day or so of IV fluids, but these patients were being hospitalized for three or four days. ... The culprit: Rotavirus, which once caused tens of thousands of hospitalizations a year in the United States but was largely swept away by vaccines introduced 20 years ago. These vaccines were so effective that Dr. Hofto could recall treating only four or five children with rotavirus in the past decade. Now, she said she had treated about that many already this year, and none of them were vaccinated.

Dr. Jessica Kirk, a pediatric hospitalist in Fairhope, Ala., recently treated an unvaccinated toddler who was hospitalized with pneumonia from two simultaneous infections, Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae. Routine childhood vaccines can protect against both S. pneumoniae and a common form of H. influenzae, but vaccinations against both illnesses have declined in recent years. ... The child that Dr. Kirk treated for both infections needed antibiotics and oxygen to get through the illness.

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https://www.nytimes.com/by/maggie-astor
https://www.nytimes.com/by/dani-blum

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/well/children-vaccines-illnesses.html