mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684
DURHAM — People who got H1N1 flu vaccinations at Durham County’s walk-in clinics Saturday said they did so to protect themselves and to take advantage of the county’s free distribution.
“This is actually more convenient than making an appointment at Walgreens or whatnot,” Doug Harmon, an IBM security official, said of the H1N1 vaccination.
The 58-year-old was one of 536 people who received vaccinations Saturday at Riverside High School. Another 433 vaccinations were performed at Hillside High School and 170 were done at Neal Middle School, for a total of 1,139. That count was far lower than the number of available vaccinations, leading Durham’s public health director to say she would alter her tactics for distributing vaccines.
Also getting vaccinations at Riverside Saturday were Andrew Geller, an Environmental Protection Agency scientist, and his wife and two children.
“We don’t want to get sick and we don’t want to get other folks sick,” Geller, 48, said.
Geller’s wife senses some complacency about H1N1, sometimes referred to as swine flu. “At least compared to how much people were talking about it in August or September and how long the lines were,” said Peg Carlson, a 48-year-old organizational psychologist. “I don’t think I hear people talking about it, and it seems pretty quiet.”
The Gellers had their vaccine injected, rather than dispensed as inhalation mists, because Lena Geller, 10, and Jacob Geller, a 14-year-old Riverside freshman, disliked getting their regular flu vaccinations in mist form.
“You wouldn’t want to get the nasal thing because it feels really disgusting,” Lena said.
Barbara Perry, a 63-year-old Riverside employee, came with her husband from Mebane so they could both get vaccinated.
She declined a county public health employee’s request to photograph her as she got the shot. “I may holler,” Perry said nervously.
Nilam Amin, a registered nurse hired by the county from On Assignment, briskly swabbed Perry’s arm with disinfectant. Seconds later, Amin’s needle punctured her shoulder without even provoking a flinch.
“That wasn’t bad at all,” Perry said. She estimated that it took just five minutes to get vaccinated Saturday.
Perry annually gets regular flu vaccinations and had heard that the H1N1 vaccine was recommended for the young and elderly. (The vaccine is now available for people of all ages, subject to some limitations such as an allergy to eggs or a history of bad reactions to the regular flu vaccine.)
“I was very comfortable with it and I was surprised how painless” the shot was, Perry said.
The school employee praised the public health department for the way the Riverside clinic was set up, especially how staffers were available to direct folks and answer questions. “I just think they were very organized and they kept it moving step by step,” she said.
Gayle Harris, Durham County’s director of public health, said that nearly all of her 220 employees were working at the three clinics Saturday. (One was excused due to a family death.) An additional 80 or so workers were paid by Duke or hired on temporary assignment.
Harris did not know the cost to the county of operating Saturday’s clinics.
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VACCINATION INFO
Vaccination appointments can be made by calling the county Public Health department at (919) 560-7882 or Duke University Health System at (877) 358-0448. Those organizations have flu information online at www.durhamcountync.gov/flu and www.dukehealth.org/flu, respectively.
