Treating diseases that vaccines could have prevented cost Colorado $13 billion over two years, according to a new report.

From 2020 to 2021, Colorado saw 420,000 hospitalizations and emergency department visits for “vaccine-preventable diseases,” such as like measles, flu and whooping cough, according to the report from Children’s Hospital Colorado and Immunize Colorado.

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More worryingly for the report’s authors, the rates in routine childhood immunizations lag even as things began to normalize following the COVID-induced drop in such vaccinations.

The report noted only 71% of Colorado children born in 2018 were fully inoculated with the Center for Disease Control’s recommended 7-series of routine vaccines by age 2, ranking Colorado No. 32 in the nation.

“Pediatric hospitalizations and ED visits are typically highest in the first three years of life when children are not yet fully vaccinated and protected,” Dr. Jessica Cataldi, the report’s main author and infectious diseases pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Colorado, said in a statement. “It’s critical to make sure young children are up-to-date with vaccinations.”

The report shows that, in 2020 and 2021, more than 327,000 adults and about 50,000 children in Colorado were hospitalized or visited the emergency room after contracting a vaccine-preventable disease. Most of adult hospitalization resulted from contracting COVID-19, influenza, varicella and pneumococcal disease, while the hospitalizations in children were due to influenza, COVID-19 and pneumococcal disease.

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