I guess the supply really is pretty sporadic. A friend’s son (not especially high risk, as far as we know) just simply got one at his pediatrician’s office.
I practically had to sleep with my doctor to get added to her list of eligible patients (her colleagues also had lists but had many more patients on them. I felt so honored). Then again, she’s seen me with some pretty nasty asthma flareups.
Around here at least, the public clinics won’t have 'em for lower risk people until December, most likely. By which time most people will have had hamthrax already, I’d bet! (not grumbling about “too little, too late”, it’s just the reality of the lead time required to produce these vaccines).
I got really lucky and found a public flu clinic for pregnant women offered by the County. All I had to do was let them know my due date and if I had any allergies. I was in and out in 10 minutes and the shot was free.
Although I was able to get H1N1 vaccine relatively easily, our entire metro area is out of seasonal flu shots. I guess that’s not that much of a surprise since most companies cut production of seasonal flu vaccine to create more H1N1 vaccine.
Yeah - pregnant women were in the group who could get the H1N1 shot at the county clinic. We joked about me stuffing a pillow under my shirt and giving it a try.
Our area’s out of the traditional variety also (you aren’t DC metro by any chance?). I got my regular flu shot on one of the last grocery-store clinics to be held in our county.
I’m actually in St. Louis. We’ve been out of regular vaccine since three weeks after its release. Go figure. Oh, well - it seems that H1N1 has made up the bulk of diagnoses for the flu lately, so hopefully it won’t matter.
If you decide to go with the pillow, let me know. I’ve got plenty of maternity clothes and won’t be using them after, well, Tuesday (if not sooner)!
My understanding is this is not true; one of the reasons that the H1N1 vaccine is getting out late is that they didn’t cut out production of the seasonal flu vaccine. They finished the run and then switched over. Another is the methodology used in the USA requires a long lead time versus mammalian based methodologies which are allowed in Europe.
It’s also posited that seasonal flu should be very low this season because H1N1 will crowd it out.
It’s free here too. Even though we’re going into summer I had the swine flu vaccination on Monday. And it didn’t come with any sort of administration fee.
I got mine a couple of weeks ago at our local hospital for free. Walked in, filled out a form, got shot, left. 5 minutes tops, and they’ve been holding open clinics for about four weeks. My oncologist insisted I get one since I teach and the little germ-carriers are everywhere, but no one asked about my cancer or had me prove I needed it.