Readers of the my previous post, where we look at the increasing rate of vaccine refusal, surely want to better understand the massive volatility of refusal rates for flu, COVID, and RSV vaccines. As I mentioned, the months with massive refusal rates line up with off-season timing - far fewer vaccines are being refused, though the rate is much higher.
Let's take a look at what I mean. Here are the vaccine volume rates with the refusal volumes for flu:
As you can see, flu refusal rates are highest in the summer time, even exceeding a majority of the opportunities. June and July of 2024, for example, had many more flu shot refusals than administrations (~75%)...but we're talking about a few 100 opportunities. Contrast that to October 2024, where the refusal rate was 12.3% and our clients administered just under 200,000 flu shots.
Nonetheless, the flu shot refusal rate has climbed significantly since 2019 and 2020 during peak months (Sep/Oct/Nov) - it was ~7% in 2020 and over 15% in 2025.
For COVID shots, the refusal rate distinction is much more obvious:
...but as I mentioned, it looks like the refusal rate for COVID vaccines is, in fact, dropping. Down from ~33% during peak 2023 to 22% in 2025. Small victories!
For RSV, we only have the last 2 years of data:
The first year, refusal rate was ~7.7%. The last 2 years, it's been ~11.5%, no real change. Of those 85K kids our clients vaccinated...I wonder how many of them avoided an awful trip to the hospital? Or even death? We will never know, I suppose, but the increase in refusal rates should make everyone concerned.