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More Texas Kindergarteners Are Coming to School Without Measles Vaccination Proof or Exemptions
Before the pandemic helped fuel the growth of vaccine politicization across the country, less than 1% of Austin school district’s kindergarteners in the fall of 2019 failed to comply with the state’s vaccine reporting requirements. Five years later, Austin ISD had some of the state’s highest number of kindergarteners who neglected those state requirements — about 1 in 5 kindergarteners had not proven they were fully vaccinated against measles and did not file an exemption.
A Texas Tribune analysis has found that this explosion of vaccine non-compliance has played out across many school districts in the state in recent years, helping to push Texas’ measles vaccine coverage to the lowest it’s been since at least 2011.
“We definitely were on a better trajectory [before the pandemic],” said Alana Bejarano, executive director of health services and nursing for the Austin school district, which reported a 23% delinquency rate for the measles vaccines among their kindergarteners.
“I don’t know that I can pinpoint the concrete answer, except [preschool and kindergarteners] were born at a time where everything kind of went off track and getting them back into that, you know, that’s been difficult.”
153 Unvaccinated Students Quarantining After Measles Exposure at South Carolina Schools
At least 153 unvaccinated students exposed to measles in South Carolina schools are quarantining, according to local health officials. In a media briefing on Thursday, officials confirmed these students were exposed contacts without immunity, leaving them to be excluded from school until the period of potential disease transmission has ended.
The schools, Spartanburg County’s Global Academy and Fairforest Elementary School, are working with the South Carolina Department of Public Health to implement recommended precautionary measures to ensure student and teacher safety, according to the briefing. On Thursday, officials confirmed the state’s 11th case of measles overall in South Carolina this year and the eighth case since Sept. 25.
“What this case tells us is that there is active, unrecognized community transmission of measles occurring in the Upstate, which makes it vital to ensure that the public have received their measles vaccinations,” a release from the South Carolina Department of Public Health read.
Kids Who Use Social Media Score Lower on Reading and Memory Tests, a Study Shows
Preteens using increasing amounts of social media perform poorer in reading, vocabulary and memory tests in early adolescence compared with those who use no or little social media. That’s according to a new study that suggests a link between social media use and poorer cognition in teens. The findings are published in JAMA.
“This is a really exciting study,” says psychologist Mitch Prinstein at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who wasn’t involved in the new research.
“It confirms a lot of what we have been hearing about from schools all across the country, which is that kids are just having a really hard time focusing on being able to learn as well as they used to, because of the ways in which social media has changed their ability to process information, perhaps.”
Instagram Will Limit Content for Teenagers Based on PG-13 Ratings
A year ago, Instagram made sweeping changes to the account settings of its teenage users after growing scrutiny from parents and lawmakers over child safety issues.
On Tuesday, it took them a step further. Instagram, which is owned by Meta, said it would begin limiting the content its teenage users can see, based on the PG-13 ratings system used by the film industry.
The policy, which will roll out by the end of the year, will also apply to conversations with the company’s artificial intelligence chatbots, which lawmakers are investigating for having inappropriate sexual chats with children. By choosing the PG-13 standard, Instagram aims to make its new policy familiar to parents, said Max Eulenstein, the app’s head of product management. PG-13 movies are generally allowed to have some swear words, mild violence and partial nudity, although Meta said it would not recommend content with nudity to teen users.
“Our North Star in the teen experience is parents and what they’re telling us they want for their teens, and that’s what led to this development and why we focused on the PG-13 standard,” Mr. Eulenstein said in an interview. Meta, which also owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger, has long contended with concerns over how its apps affect children and has promised to protect minors from inappropriate content since 2008.
