Even adults could soon be vulnerable to “childhood” illnesses

There were more than 32,000 cases of whooping cough in 2024, the highest tally in a decade. In California alone, the disease struck 2,000 people between January and October last year.

More than 60 infants younger than 4 months have been hospitalized in the state. One died.

Whooping cough, or whooping cough, is just the most striking example of what happens when vaccination rates decline. But it’s far from the only one.

The pandemic has halted childhood vaccinations across the country, and rates have yet to recover. As a result, hundreds of thousands of children are increasingly vulnerable to diseases once largely relegated to the history books.

Most of them mainly affect young children, such as measles, mumps and rubella. But if vaccinations continue to decline over the next few years — due to growing distrust or more restrictive federal policies — preventable infectious diseases will re-emerge across all age groups, experts say.

“It might take a year or two, but there’s no doubt about it,” said Pejman Rouhani, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Georgia.

“We will have epidemics,” he said.

It’s not just the unvaccinated who will have to worry. Even adults vaccinated decades ago can find themselves vulnerable to what is now considered a childhood illness.