Door County Medical Center’s forward-thinking may have protected your children against diseases not commonly seen due to vaccines.
One of those diseases is measles, which the World Health Organization and the United States Centers for Disease Control report that even though cases went down in 2020, the number of those unvaccinated against it went up. The CDC suggests that is because it was underreported after the world saw the number of measles cases rise between 2017 and 2019. More than 22 million infants missed their first dose of the measles vaccine last year, which was the largest increase seen by researchers in nearly two decades.
While some hospitals across the country fear they cannot catch up on routine immunizations for kids quick enough due to a backlog of appointments and a focus on getting kids vaccinated against COVID-19, that is not the case locally. Door County Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jim Heise credits pediatrician Dr. Amy Fogarty with a plan to keep kids in check at a time when they were trying to limit who was coming into the hospital.
He also credits the team for making getting the COVID-19 vaccine for kids a little more enjoyable by playing Disney movies and distributing cookies and slime in the waiting area.
