Crowd packs Sacramento County’s first public flu clinic
With books, lunches and other diversions to cope with a long wait, thousands line up at Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento on Monday waiting for inoculations at Sacramento County's first public H1N1 flu clinic of the season. The crowd was reported mostly polite and patient, although not everyone who showed up received a dose of the free vaccine. Other public clinics are planned.
Some people staked out places at Hiram Johnson High School as early as 7:45 a.m. Many brought books to read, toys for the kids, and home-cooked lunches. And most of the 5,000 people who showed up Monday for Sacramento County's first public H1N1 vaccine clinic carried the hope they might shield themselves from what's becoming an aggressive flu season.
Right on cue, the large crowd began filling the school's cafeteria, a makeshift clinic staffed by Sacramento County public health officials, at 3:30 p.m. Monday.
They had lined up for hours in the parking lot and football field – for the most part well-behaved.
While the county's H1N1 flu vaccine clinics before Thanksgiving are intended for priority groups, Monday's clinic was more first-come, first-served. Sympathetic officials granted a wide latitude in allowing people to receive vaccinations.
The crowd did its own self-policing.
About 2 p.m., a man in a sports jersey attempted to cut to the front, despite his ticket number indicating he should be waiting well back in line, on the campus' sports field.
Cynthia Adcock, 31, who had been waiting since 12:50 p.m., turned him in.
"I've been waiting here for so long, and I pulled my kids out of school," she said. "I'm not about to let someone in front of me."
The man shouted and swore at police officers and school administrators, then stalked away.
On the whole, though, the mostly family crowd was cordial and organized.
Perhaps it was the free coffee, hot chocolate and water at a Salvation Army truck. For some it was knowing that after months of helpless waiting and being told "no," they would soon be able to breathe easier.
"If I got the H1N1 I would literally die," said Lorna Oppenheimer, who wore a tuberculosis respirator mask and said her steroid medication has left her with no immune system. "I've been scared to death of going into public places."
Madeline Rubenstein of Carmichael was first in line Monday. She spent the day waiting in line for her 5-year-old son, who has asthma. Rubenstein came prepared: She had a paper bag with her son's medication, a lawn chair and several books.
Because her son has asthma he is at high risk for developing complications from the swine flu, and she has kept him out of school some days for fear he would become infected. Reading serenely behind black aviator glasses, Rubenstein said she cried from relief when she arrived at Hiram Johnson.
"I would have flown to L.A. to get it if I could," she said. "It was so emotional because I've been waiting for it for months, and finally the day came."
Those who showed up were screened several times before getting to the front of the vaccine line: once by school officials who gave out vaccine tickets, and then by public health officials.
Each team seemed to believe the other would take on the unpleasant task of kicking people out.
There also was some confusion over whether to allow senior citizens to get the vaccine. People over 65 are not in a priority group, but many of those who said they had underlying medical conditions – asthma, diabetes and heart conditions, for example – were vaccinated.
Early in the afternoon, Paulette Meeks, Sacramento City Unified School District's health services director, said she had turned away only 100 people.
"My ethics are being challenged here," said the district's Leonard Wooley, who was trying to control the part of the crowd that by 3:30 p.m. had not received tickets and was growing desperate. "There's so many people with major physical disabilities, and I hate to turn them away."
Jane Remly, 69, and her husband, Lloyd, 72, got the shot with no trouble, because they have disabilities.
At least a few seniors waited all day, only to be turned away.
Betty Anaya, 59, was vaccinated, since she has diabetes, but her 90-year-old father was not. "They turned away my dad, and he's out there suffering (waiting in line)," she said.
Some 2,000 doses were to have been administered Monday, public health officials said.
The county's series of 40 H1N1 flu clinics runs through mid-January, and officials said they expect to vaccinate about 2,000 people at each.
Other area counties have not posted clinic schedules.
The first clinics in Sacramento County, through Nov. 24, are restricted to county residents in one of the following priority groups: pregnant women; health care workers; people ages 6 months to 24 years; adults ages 24 to 64 with underlying medical conditions; and people caring for children under 6 months old.
The county received more than 36,000 vaccine doses and has distributed 22,000 to about 100 Sacramento health-care providers serving patients in priority groups, public health officials said.
Since the virus emerged last spring, 16 people in Sacramento County have died because of the H1N1 flu.
Nationwide, from April to October, almost 4,000 people have died, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In that period about 22 million people were infected with the H1N1 virus – about 7 percent of the population – and 100,000 were hospitalized.
Each year, seasonal flu viruses claim about 36,000 people. Between 5 and 20 percent of the population is normally infected each year. But the CDC warned that H1N1 infections have occurred outside of the normal flu season, and the normally busy flu months are still ahead.
While public worry about H1N1 escalated, companies raced to manufacture vaccine, promising it would be widely available in October. But there were delays, so the vaccine is just now becoming more widely available.
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