Rantz: You’re being deceived about vaccination declines amongst Washington students

Seattle media outlets are misleading you on declining vaccination rates among K-12 students in Washington. Whether it’s a result of their bias or unintentionally disinterested journalism, it doesn’t matter because the end result is the same: you’re not getting the full picture.

Seattle Times and Fox 13 splashed headlines about vaccination rates “dropping again,” and kindergarten vaccines “falling,” as if Washington suddenly turned into an anti-vax bunker. In The Seattle Times, Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is implicitly blamed for the dip, noting it “coincides with growing anti-vaccine sentiment throughout the country.” Fox 13 tells viewers that kindergarten vaccination “fell more than 4% compared to the 2020–2021 school year,” implying it’s to blame for a small number of local measles cases. 

But what neither highlight: they’re comparing today’s numbers to a COVID-era peak — an artificial high point created by extraordinary mandates and compliance pushes, plus fear — not to the normal, pre-pandemic baseline. By that measure, statewide vaccination is still higher than normal, which makes the “down” framing misleading at best and manipulative at worst.

Vaccination rates are hardly ‘down’ the way Seattle media claims

Vaccination rates are not “down” in the traditional sense. We’re headed back to normal. This is exactly where vaccination rates were before COVID hysteria artificially inflated the numbers. Pretending otherwise is a classic case of cherry-picking data to fit a preferred narrative.

The Washington Department of Health’s own dashboard shows the K-12 “complete” vaccination rate for 2024-25 is about 89%. That’s slightly lower than the pandemic highs, but perfectly in line with the historical averages before COVID. Yet, The Seattle Times and Fox 13 would rather have you believe this is some shocking decline. They’re comparing today’s numbers to those pandemic-driven anomalies and framing it as proof of a public health crisis. That’s not honest reporting. That’s manipulation to serve a narrative.

Seattle media, intentionally or not, want to tie this entirely predictable return to normal levels to their favorite political bogeymen: MAGA conservatives and religious Washingtonians. If you read between the lines of these stories, you’ll notice the loaded language and the not-so-subtle finger-pointing. They highlight “personal” and “religious” exemptions as if those exercising their rights are dangerous villains threatening public health. It’s the same divisive tactic we saw throughout the pandemic: demonize certain groups to advance an agenda.

It’s also about trust

It’s possible that the vaccination rates would have stayed artificially high and become the new normal. But Seattle media and the left-wing lawmakers they carry water for ruined the trust many had in public health officials.

Seattle media contributed to the trust deficit during COVID. It’s likely the main reasons parents aren’t blindly complying with every vaccine recommendation like they did from 2020-2022. The constant lies about school closures, mask mandates, and vaccine efficacy eroded public trust in public health officials and the media that parroted their talking points. Parents remember being told the COVID vaccine would stop transmission — a claim they knew wasn’t true. They remember government bureaucrats pretending children were at high risk for COVID complications when the data showed the complete opposite.

Is it any wonder that some parents are taking a step back and re-evaluating their choices? That doesn’t make them “anti-vaxxers,” despite what some want you to believe. It makes them rational human beings who no longer take the media or public health establishment at their word.

Just read the data

The Seattle Times and Fox 13 are banking on the fact that most readers won’t actually dig into the Department of Health’s data. They’re betting you’ll see their scary headline and blame the people they want you to blame.

But the truth is boring and inconvenient: vaccination rates are stable and almost identical to what they were in 2016, 2017, and 2018. The only real change is that we’re no longer living under the shadow of COVID-era coercion. If the media truly cared about public health, they would focus on restoring trust, not misinterpreting the data to target the Trump administration. But that would require introspection.

Washington’s vaccination rates aren’t collapsing. What we are witnessing is the media exploiting data for cheap political points. And every time they do it, they make it harder for the public to trust them.

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