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There has been a local drop in child vaccinations and routine visits according to Dr. Helen Bumpus with Ascension St. John Jane Phillips.

There has been a drop of approximately 20 to 25-percent in their regular volume. This means a handful of vaccinations and routine visits have been missed.

On top of missing appointments and routine vaccinations, Dr. Bumpus said children and adolescents are missing appointments for chronic illness like ADHD, depression, and anxiety. She said this is particularly concerning given that children will be going back to school soon in Washington County. Dr. Bumpus wants to ensure the public that precautions have been implemented to make visits safe from COVID-19.

Check-ins will be done at your car, there will be no waiting room waiting, and everyone in the building is to wear a mask at all times. If someone is suspected of having COVID-19, they will not be permitted into the building.

Virtual visits are available in some cases, but reliable internet will be needed for these appointments. Dr. Bumpus said you can set up an appointment by calling 918.338.3777.

Controlling what already works is important in light of the coronavirus pandemic. While vaccines are not always 100-percent effective, they nearly work every time.

With vaccines, Dr. Bumpus said they are be able to prevent diseases that are preventable. She said it is important to prevent the diseases they can prevent so there is no overlap of diseases with COVID-19, which is not controllable by vaccination.

Ahead of the 2020-2021 school year, every parent should evaluate if their child or children should be in school or not. Dr. Bumpus said she thinks kids have missed out on a lot of things by not being in school, but she also thinks that the pandemic has been treated as a prolonged spring break. In many cases, Dr. Bumpus said kids have not done their work, they have not social distanced, and they have not worn masks to protect themselves or kids around them.

As a result, kids are potentially spreading the disease to one another. Dr. Bumpus said they can't protect everyone. She said we have to proceed knowing that it is not 100-percent safe.

Kids will get sick, and Dr. Bumpus said the hope is that schools will have their students prepared to go to online instruction should the need arise for schools to temporarily close down. She said they also need to continue to prepare teachers for a pending closure as well, because there is no question that there will be illness next school year. To prevent this, however, everyone needs to do their part in protecting one another from the novel coronavirus.

Herd immunity requires 55 to 80-percent of the population to be immune to something before we can protect each other by either having the disease or by having the vaccine. Dr. Bumpus said this is complicated when looking at COVID-19 because it appears that immunity from the novel virus is not long lasting. She said you cannot assume that if you tested positive for the virus that you will be immune forever.

This is something that doctors everywhere are still learning about. When looking at measles, Dr. Bumpus said if you have been adequately vaccinated for the disease, you are very unlikely to have it. If you have one person that hasn't been vaccinated for measles but they're surrounded by people that have been vaccinated, that person is somewhat protected from the disease. But when looking at a case like in California in recent years where there was a pocket of people that weren't vaccinated for measles, one person caught the disease and it spread rapidly to those around them.

There are many variables, but Dr. Bumpus said the people that are saying we can count on herd immunity to protect us from COVID-19 without a vaccine are not seeing the picture clearly or completely. She said it is too difficult to get to a high level of herd immunity without a vaccination for the coronavirus, which is why we count on other people to get vaccinated when looking at other diseases. It is important to socially distance oneself from others when possible, to wear a mask when recommended and to wash one's hands.