A comprehensive UN study has found the terrible result that during the COVID-19 pandemic, many fewer children in the world have been vaccinated for all the most well-known communicable diseases. The isolated crash program WARP Speed, and the 12 billion doses of COVID vaccine distributed internationally, completely failed to overcome a drop in public health standards and capabilities, and of living standards, worldwide.
This was “the worst backslide in global vaccination coverage in a generation,” said the WHO in releasing data from UNICEF last week. Global coverage of children with vaccines for 11 key diseases fell from 71% in 2019 to 68% in 2021, the first drop in over 30 years. Vaccination with DTP vaccine (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) was 86% in 2019 and fell to 81% of children in 2021, with 25 million children lacking that long-standard coverage. Vaccination for measles and polio each fell by 4-5%. Protection against human papillomavirus (HPV) fell by 5% in two years; and since this vaccine is relatively new, that constituted a loss of a quarter of all global coverage.
