Important: VAERS reports alone cannot determine if a vaccine caused an adverse event. Reports may contain incomplete, inaccurate, or unverified information. Correlation does not equal causation.
Vaccine confidence in the United States has shifted significantly since the pandemic. Childhood vaccination rates are slipping below critical thresholds in some areas, COVID booster uptake has plateaued at historic lows, and political polarization around vaccines has intensified. Here is what the data shows — and what it means for public health.
Vaccine hesitancy is not new, but the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically reshaped the landscape. What was once a fringe concern is now a mainstream political and cultural issue. KFF's COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor — the most comprehensive ongoing survey of vaccine attitudes — shows that approximately 20% of U.S. adults say they will "definitely not" get an updated COVID-19 booster, a number that has remained stubbornly stable since late 2022.
More concerning than COVID-specific hesitancy is the spillover effect onto routine childhood vaccines. Gallup polling from January 2026 found that only 69% of Americans believe it is "extremely or very important" for parents to vaccinate their children — down from 84% in 2019. This 15-percentage-point decline in just seven years represents one of the most significant shifts in public health attitudes in modern American history.
The CDC's annual kindergarten vaccination assessment for the 2024–2025 school year revealed a national MMR coverage rate of approximately 92.7% — below the 95% threshold generally considered necessary for herd immunity against measles. While this national average masks significant state-level variation, the overall trend is concerning:
The practical consequence appeared in early 2025, when the U.S. experienced its largest measles outbreak since 2019 — over 700 confirmed cases, concentrated in communities with low vaccination rates in Texas, Ohio, and Florida. These outbreaks disproportionately affected unvaccinated children and resulted in dozens of hospitalizations.
Non-medical vaccine exemptions — religious or philosophical — vary dramatically by state. As of the 2024–2025 school year, 14 states have kindergarten non-medical exemption rates above 5%, with some areas far higher:
By contrast, states that permit only medical exemptions — California, New York, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Maine — consistently maintain exemption rates below 1% and overall vaccination rates above 95%. The correlation between exemption policy and vaccination rates is one of the strongest findings in vaccine policy research. Explore state-level requirements on our state vaccine requirements page.
COVID-19 booster uptake has stabilized at historically low levels. The 2025–2026 updated COVID-19 vaccine (targeting the JN.1 lineage) has been taken by approximately 23% of eligible adults — far below the roughly 50% who received the initial two-dose primary series and comparable to annual flu vaccine uptake rates.
This plateau reflects a combination of factors: perceived low personal risk (especially among younger adults), "pandemic fatigue" reducing motivation, distrust of repeated formulation changes, and political polarization. Among adults 65+, uptake is significantly higher at approximately 42%, reflecting both greater perceived risk and stronger physician recommendation in this age group.
The role of social media in amplifying vaccine hesitancy has been extensively studied since the pandemic. Key findings include:
Vaccine hesitancy does not follow simple demographic lines. The patterns are complex and often counterintuitive:
Despite declining institutional trust, personal healthcare providers remain the most trusted source of vaccine information. A 2026 Gallup survey found that 73% of Americans trust their own doctor's vaccine recommendations — far higher than trust in the CDC (52%), the FDA (48%), or pharmaceutical companies (27%).
This finding has practical implications: studies consistently show that a strong physician recommendation is the single most effective intervention for vaccine uptake. Patients whose doctors use a "presumptive" approach ("You're due for your flu shot today") are significantly more likely to accept vaccination than those given a "participatory" approach ("What do you think about getting a flu shot?").
However, even provider trust has eroded. The share of Americans rating nurses and physicians as having "high or very high" honesty and ethics dropped from 85% to 74% between 2019 and 2025 in Gallup polling — a casualty of pandemic-era controversies over masking, lockdowns, and changing public health guidance.
The policy landscape around vaccine requirements has become a front in the broader culture wars:
The U.S. is not alone in grappling with vaccine hesitancy, but the degree of political polarization around vaccines is unusually high:
VAERS data plays an outsized role in the vaccine hesitancy conversation. The database is publicly accessible, its raw numbers can appear alarming to those unfamiliar with passive surveillance limitations, and it has been widely cited in anti-vaccine social media content. VaccineWatch exists in part to bridge this gap — providing transparent access to VAERS data alongside the context needed to interpret it accurately.
Key resources for understanding VAERS in context include our analyses of reporting bias, who files VAERS reports, and whether VAERS is reliable. The database is a valuable early warning system — it helped detect the myocarditis signal — but it was never designed to be a scoreboard of vaccine harms, and misusing it as one fuels unfounded fears.
Vaccine hesitancy in 2026 is a multifaceted challenge driven by eroded institutional trust, political polarization, social media dynamics, and pandemic fatigue. The data shows measurable declines in both childhood and adult vaccination rates, with real public health consequences including measles outbreaks. Solutions are not simple — they require rebuilding trust at the individual provider level, transparent communication about both benefits and risks, and evidence-based policy that balances public health protection with individual liberty concerns.
What the data does not support is the narrative that vaccines are broadly unsafe. Five years of intensive monitoring have produced a detailed safety picture that, while not perfect, is more comprehensive than for any medical intervention in history. The challenge is not a lack of safety data — it is ensuring that data reaches people in a form they can understand and trust.