More vaccines than people

Despite e-mails, automated phone calls, text messages and a notification via the student Weber Portal, the Weber Morgan Health Department (WMHD) only administered roughly 80% of 8,000 available H1N1 vaccines Monday and Tuesday in the Dee Events Center.
Lori Buttars, the WMHD public information spokesperson, attributed the moderate turnout to cold weather. She also said the WMHD didn’t actively notify the entire public about the vaccinations until after they had targeted students of Weber State University. 
“We weren’t sure we would get a lot of college students coming down to our offices,” Buttars said. “We wanted to make sure that they had an opportunity to at least say ‘I wanted it’ or ‘I didn’t.’”
Clearfield resident TaNiesha Hansen started waiting for a vaccination outside the Dee Events Center two hours before the doors opened Tuesday morning.
“I got turned away last time so I just wanted to make sure I got it this time,” Hansen said.
The Salt Lake Valley Health Department started turning down Hansen and others late last month about 30 minutes after opening their doors. Hansen said she was in line at 5 a.m. but there were people in front of her who had camped overnight in the cold and snow.
Buttars said that statistics show people younger than 24 are affected by H1N1 more severely and frequently than the rest of the population. Despite health department concerns, nursing major Brynne Ludlow was one of several students in the Union Building Tuesday who was not interested in receiving the vaccination.
“I’m paranoid and worried that it’s not tested enough,”  Ludlow said. “I don’t want to turn into a mutant.”
Some of the other students who weren’t vaccinated said they were too busy or even that they weren’t sure if they qualified to receive the shot.
There are five groups of people eligible to receive the vaccination: health care workers, persons six months to 24 years old, pregnant women, caregivers of infants younger than six months and people 25 to 64 who have health conditions associated with a higher risk of medical complications from influenza.
The WCHD will hold H1N1 vaccination clinics every Tuesday and Wednesday beginning Dec. 1 at the Weber County Fair Grounds. Appointments to receive the vaccination can be made Monday at the fair grounds between 4 and 6 p.m. 
Over 100 students volunteered their time to help distribute the vaccine. Nursing student Casey Smith administered the vaccine via shots and nasal spray from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“I’m able to come out here and to be a benefit to other people,” Smith said. “That’s part of what nursing is.”
If the H1N1 vaccine is ever produced and distributed to local health departments in large enough quantities, it could be made available to the entire population. For now, Buttars said the vaccination will have to be rationed because of an ongoing shortage.
For more information about the H1N1 vaccine or virus, contact the WMHD at 801-399-8814.