Their research shows a quarter of schools don't even have a nurse on staff, so it's unclear who's keeping tabs. Linda Mendonca is president of the National Association of School Nurses. NOGUCHI: Typically, though, checking immunization databases or asking parents and doctors for records falls to school nurses. And yet in Texas, as in every other state, childhood vaccinations are required by law. According to the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the same pattern is playing out across the country, with the overall number of routine childhood vaccine doses down 6% to 18% below pre-pandemic levels, depending on the vaccine or the age group. And Schwind estimates that about 15% of students in her district are now missing shots. NOGUCHI: That on top of last year's lockdowns and missed annual checkups. So in many places, the availability of the routine vaccines may not be the usual spot. SCHWIND: Many clinics that give routine vaccines have been converted to giving COVID vaccines. But of course, this year wasn't like others. KAREN SCHWIND: We start notifying parents in the winter - like, January, March, and then again in May. A big part of the nurse's job is checking every student against the state's immunization database to make sure they've received their required shots. YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Karen Schwind manages a team of school nurses in the central Texas district of New Braunfels. Now infectious disease experts worry that less protection against these older diseases could raise the prospect of outbreaks. But since the pandemic started, many kids have missed out on their immunizations. Typically, this is when parents and schools check on routine vaccines for childhood diseases like rubella, diphtheria and whooping cough. It's back-to-school time for many children across the U.S.
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