DANVILLE, Pa. — Summer vacation is almost over for students in northeastern and central Pennsylvania. Parents have a lot to think about as children prepare to return to school, and experts want to remind you about vaccines.
"There are requirements from the state that if you haven't had your vaccines within four days, you can be excluded from school unless you have your waiver signed. So, we really need to be making those plans now if people haven't," said Dr. Stacey Cummings, Geisinger vice chair of outpatient pediatric services.
Vaccines play an important role in preventing children from getting sick.
"It is all the vaccines you've had in the first two years of your life in addition to measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, polio, and diphtheria, tetanus. Many places give those as two injections."
While the flu shot is not mandatory, Dr. Cummings strongly recommends it. Many places will have the flu shot available by the end of this month.
"If folks have gotten their flu vaccines in September, October, even early November, they should have plenty of time to have a response to those vaccines so they're ready for when flu starts to circulate, but since we don't know when it will circulate, earlier is better."
The COVID-19 vaccine is not mandatory either. Dr. Cummings says that nationally, there is an uptick in COVID cases.
"There's a lot of question as to whether there will be another recommendation this fall. There were some recent comments by the CDC director that there probably will be an additional COVID-19 vaccine coming out. Timing on that, who it will be recommended for, all of those things haven't been released yet."
Dr. Cummings wants to remind parents that routine vaccines are a way to keep kids healthy, in school, and ready to learn.
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