This has been a great week for free medical stuff.
First there was the
free HIV testing, now there's free H1N1 vaccines.
The Kansas City Health Department has a vaccination clinic scheduled for Thursday from 2 to 6:30 p.m. at the Northland Cathedral (101 N.W. 99th St.). It's first-come, first-served until supplies run out so you should get their early if you have reason to worry about your exposure to the virus formerly known as "Swine Flu."
You should remember that the free vaccines are for priority groups, so only:
- pregnant women
- children and young people between the ages of 6 months and 24 years
- people chronic health problems between the ages of 25 and 64
- a health care worker (bring ID)
- someone with regular contact with a child under six months old.
Normally, the elderly are first in line for flu vaccines, but the Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that people 65 years and older are actually less likely to get H1N1, so you'll have to hang back for now, boomers.
It's unclear exactly how many people may have died from H1N1 related complications since the
CDC told states to stop testing for H1N1 in July and therefore stop reporting stats counting individual cases.
The reasoning was that the government already confirmed H1N1 as an epidemic, so why bother keeping track anymore? A cursory Google News
search turns up less than 30 deaths in Missouri and Kansas combined.
Photo via scrapetv.com.
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