Oct 26, 2007 2:56 pm US/Eastern
Howard Co. Plans Drive-Thru Flu Shot Clinic
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. (AP) ―
Howard County health officials hope to vaccinate 4,000 residents against the flu next month by offering the shots for free at a drive-through clinic.
The clinic, in addition to vaccinating residents, will be a test of how fast Howard County can deploy medications quickly in case of emergency.
"This is an exercise in how quickly we can get people through a clinic like this," said Dr. Peter Beilenson, Howard's health officer.
Drivers will got through triage, divided into adults and families, and ushered into different parking areas off Columbia
Gateway Drive. Families will be vaccinated at 15 stations, and eight stations will be for adults. Traffic will move in one
direction in an effort to avoid the backups and 90-minute wait for last year's clinic.
"We're quite confident we'll be having a much smoother trek through this vaccination process than we've had in years past," Beilenson said.
Police Chief William McMahon said the effort will also help county emergency response officials prepare for a disaster. "We do a lot of talking and planning and buying equipment, but every once in a while we have to put these assumptions and planning to the test," McMahon said.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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