(ONN) – Childhood vaccination numbers are trending down in Ohio.

State health officials report a little more than 85 percent of kindergartners met all required shots for the 2024 to 2025 school year.

That’s a nearly 4-and-a-half percent drop from the 2019 to 2020 school year and below the 90 percent benchmark needed for herd immunity to slow the spread of disease.

Officials say more Ohio kindergartners are skipping vaccines, with non-medical exemptions rising from 2.6 percent in 2019-20 to 4 percent in 2023-24.