Kindergarten MMR coverage in the United States has slipped to 92.4 percent for the 2025-2026 school year, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on August 17, 2026. That is well below the 95 percent level public health officials say is needed to keep measles from spreading in a community.
At the same time, vaccine exemptions among kindergartners reached a record 4.2 percent, up from 3.6 percent the year before. Exemptions rose in 41 states and Washington, D.C.
The practical effect is large. Roughly 280,000 children started kindergarten this year without documentation that they had completed the two-dose MMR series, and about 155,000 hold an exemption from at least one required vaccine.
The numbers behind the drop
Coverage fell for every routine shot the CDC tracks. MMR slipped from 92.5 percent, DTaP moved down to 92.0 percent, and varicella coverage dropped to 93.4 percent, according to Healio's summary of the CDC report. Only 10 states now report MMR coverage above 95 percent, while 12 states sit below 89 percent.
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The exemption picture is even more uneven. Twenty-four states have kindergarten exemption rates above 5 percent, and 11 states are above 7 percent. Nearly all of the increase is nonmedical. Medical exemptions have held at 0.2 percent since 2020-2021, while nonmedical exemptions have climbed from 1.9 percent that year to 4.0 percent now.
"Over 92% of kindergarteners are vaccinated. Anything less than an A+ grade is not good enough," said Andrew D. Racine, MD, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in comments reported by Healio.
Why 95 percent matters
Measles is one of the most contagious viruses known. When a large enough share of a community is immune, chains of transmission fizzle out before they can reach infants too young to be vaccinated or people who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. That threshold is roughly 95 percent for measles, which is why coverage even a couple of points lower can allow sustained outbreaks.
"Measles is so highly contagious, and there are now enough individuals who are not immunized that it has the ability to quickly spread," Graham Tse, MD, chief medical officer of MemorialCare Miller Children's and Women's Hospital, told Healthline.
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The consequence is already visible in national case counts. As of mid-August 2026, the CDC had recorded 2,566 measles cases across the country, the highest annual total since 1991. Ninety-four percent of those cases are tied to one of 38 outbreaks, and 93 percent of patients were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. About 7 percent have been hospitalized. Roughly two-thirds of cases are in people 19 or younger.
What parents can do
Because state and county coverage varies widely, families can check their own school or district's vaccination and exemption rates on the CDC's SchoolVaxView dashboard, which publishes state-level data each year.
The MMR schedule recommended by the CDC is two doses, the first at 12 to 15 months and the second at 4 to 6 years. Parents with questions about their child's records, missed doses, or concerns about measles symptoms such as high fever, cough, red eyes, and a spreading rash should talk to their pediatrician.
"We haven't had enough suffering, hospitalizations and deaths yet to convince people vaccinating children is important," Paul A. Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said in the same Healio report.
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This article is made and published by Jesper Bengtson, who may have used AI in the preparation.