Small Town News

First ever drive through flu clinic closed early due to unforeseen success

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"It went way better than we possibly could have imagined," said Sarah North, emergency preparedness coordinator for Lassen County Public Health.

Only after one hour the drive through clinic opened for the public, Public Health had already reached their goal.

"We did more than 800 people in just three hours, so we exceeded any of our expectations by a lot," said North.

The clinic was scheduled from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. but was forced to close early because it ran out of vaccine.

"It was so sad, but we had to close," said North. "We had no idea we would have that kind of response. It was way more than we had planned on."

They did all they could to keep the clinic open, even going back to the health department to get as much vaccine as they could, said North.

"We do have more vaccine coming. The state figures out our allotment and so we had our first allotment," said North "We had planned on what we had done in the past with our other clinics and even upped that."

The only complaints received were about the traffic on Main Street caused by the clinic.

"All the people I talked to personally had very good things to say about it. They all liked it," said North.

It was the first time trying to attempt the drive through flu clinic for Lassen County.

"Now that we've done it once, we can work out some of the kinks and have it be that much better," said North.

There will be an N1H1 drive through vaccination tentatively scheduled for the end of October.

"We will definitely base it off of the 800 plus that we did for this clinic and then some," said North.

For the regular flu vaccine there will be more clinics in the future but not another drive through clinic, said North.



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