Credit: (AP Photo/David Goldman)Back to school preparations involve more than new notebooks and fresh clothes. For many families in New Jersey, the routine also involves a visit to their pediatrician or neighborhood drugstore so kids can get vaccinated.
New Jersey has long required grade-school students to be immunized against nearly a dozen diseases. But while COVID-19 vaccinations are still mandated by a handful of in-state colleges, they are not currently among the shots needed for children attending daycare or preschool through high school. And families can seek an exemption to K-12 vaccination requirements for medical or religious reasons, with the latter becoming more common in recent years.
Here’s what New Jersey law requires for childhood vaccinations.
To attend pre-school or daycare programs, infants between 2 months and 20 months must be immunized against 11 diseases, a process that involves seven different vaccines, several of which require multiple doses. Among other diseases, these shots protect against chicken pox, polio, flu, measles, mumps and whooping cough.
The state requires children in kindergarten through 5th grade to receive four immunizations, to protect against the following diseases: chicken pox (or varicella), polio, measles, mumps, rubella and hepatitis B, which is not part of the state vaccine schedule for infants. To participate in 6th grade and above, kids are also required to be immunized against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis — through a shot they likely received as babies — and also meningitis.
Timed to coincide with back-to-school preparations and the return of seasonal illnesses like influenza, state health officials in August kicked off their annual immunization campaign urging families to remain up to date on their COVID-19 and flu shots. A new version of the COVID-19 shot, better targeted to protect against the strains of the disease now circulating, is expected to be available in mid- to late September.
— Charts by Genesis Obando
