On-time vaccinations throughout childhood is essential to provide immunity from potentially deadly disease before the child is even exposed.  Most parents follow these guidelines from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and vaccinate their children on the recommended schedule. With the current COVID-19 pandemic, some children have fallen behind schedule on their vaccinations.   

Childhood immunizations are essential even during the COVID-19 pandemic and it is very important to keep up with your child’s recommended schedule.  If children were to fall behind on their schedules and as a result there was an outbreak of a preventable disease, the results could be devastating.  Hospital systems could become so overwhelmed with both Covid-19 and the preventable disease that quality care could not be provided to everyone.   

We are fortunate that today in 2020, we can effectively prevent 14 serious childhood diseases due to vaccinations.  Vaccinations have been proven time and time again to be a safe and effective way to prevent serious or even deadly diseases in our population.  Multiple current studies have shown no link between childhood vaccinations and Autism.  Every vaccine is thoroughly studied for multiple years before they can be given to the public.   

Vaccinations save lives!  With high vaccinations levels we achieve community immunity, and diseases that once killed thousands of people have completely disappeared. An example of this is Polio.  Polio has completely disappeared in the United States.  In the United States alone 42,000 of the 4.1 million children born every year would die early deaths from diseases that could have been prevented.   

Immunizing our children is vital to the health and well-being of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe.  I urge you as parents and guardians to keep your children up to date on their vaccination schedule, even during times of uncertainty during the Covid-19 pandemic.  The Southern Ute Health Center has gone through multiple steps to ensure the safety of patients coming to the clinic for care.  The Southern Ute Health Center will be holding an immunization clinic on Wednesday, August 19 and Thursday, August 20.  If interested in scheduling an appointment, please call the health center. We hope to see you there.