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The D.C. Department of Health announced Thursday that it is reducing the hours and frequency of its free H1N1 vaccine clinics in order to be able to send more doses to doctor's offices and community health centers. DOH says that over 11,000 people have been served in D.C.'s clinics in the past two weeks.
Some of the changes include an earlier closing time of 1 p.m. (instead of 4 p.m.) for this Saturday's clinics, the cancellation of two clinics on Tuesday (at Coolidge High School and McKinley Technology High School) as well as the Nov. 14 clinic at Wilson High School. You can find an updated schedule of the District's clinics at flu.dc.gov.
As more vaccines are shifted to family physicians and community health centers over the next couple of weeks, DOH says residents should call their health care providers to see if they can get the vaccine from them. The date by which the vaccine is expected to arrive at pharmacies has also been pushed back, until after the week of November 23.
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Bummer, I like the concept of the completely public clinics. It made the vaccine very accessible to all who wanted and were eligible for one. In other areas where the vaccines are available in private practices people are having a very difficult time getting them. I have friends who had to spend significant amounts of time tracking the shots down and being admitted for them in PA and NJ where they are using the mixed distribution model. Some practices are reserving them for their patients only. My hope is that DOH distributes them to practices like the Farragut Medical or pharmacies like Walgreens or Giant that take walk ins.
DOH is still offering free immunizations. They only cut back on places and times a little.
My complaint is that those DOH clinics don't also offer immunization against the "regular" flu. So I still need to go to two places to get my kids immunized.
I originally had that same complaint but after thinking about it I came to the conclusion that the H1N1 clinics are so well run IMO that throwing the seasonal shot in would be just enough to screw the whole system up. There are no mixups and everyone knows exactly why they are there, what they want and what they need to do. There is also the factor of the cost of the seasonal shot which is not free.
Easy access to a swine flu vaccine will only encourage people to engage in more risky behavior, like licking doorknobs and eating bacon. Much better to simply go to a cramped, poorly ventilated church and pray daily.
Rule #1: WASH YOUR HANDS!
Rule #2: WASH YOUR HANDS!
Rule #3: See Rule #1 and #2!
It looks like someone's been violating the First and Second Rules of Swine Club.
I went to the clinic at McKinley last night and it was really wonderfully organized but not very well attended. I expected long lines and by 7 it really tapered off. Not surprising that they would cut back and reallocate vaccines to drs offices if the clinics weren't being taken advantage of as much as they could be.
I am having no problems at all finding locations for the H1N1 vaccine shots. I got my eighth shot yesterday.