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Published - Nov 5th, 2009
By
A little more than two weeks ago, only 20 people came out to a meeting at Centre Wellington DHS to hear about plans for H1N1 clinics coming up in the area.
Back then, it was thought only about one-third of people would even get a vaccination against H1N1, and many seemed to be thinking they’d wait for more information before going ahead.
But since then, something close to panic set in.
On Friday, 2,000 people showed up to the first public vaccination clinic run by Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, at a Guelph school. On Monday morning, hundreds lined up, some as early as 6 a.m., for the first Centre Wellington clinic.
All over the country, thousands of people have been standing in line, waiting hours in cold, rainy weather – and some aren’t even getting the shot after all that, finding clinics are shutting down or running out of vaccine before they get in.
What happened?
In a way, public health departments have succeeded in their mission of getting people woken up to the potential dangers of H1N1 – succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, thanks in part to days of sensational national media coverage.
The death of 13-year-old hockey player Evan Frustaglio from H1N1 a little over a week ago brought the fact of H1N1 home to thousands of people. All of a sudden it became shockingly real. The disease came out of the blue and struck down a fit, athletic youngester who was seemingly in perfect health.
All of a sudden, everyone – and everyone’s children – seemed at risk.
And Evan’s death coming just days before vaccination clinics were due to open, when people were already hearing vague details about provinces not getting the full amounts of vaccine they’d ordered, fueled the panic.
Compounding the problem, it seems doctors' offices are either booked up with patients looking for the vaccine, have stopped taking appointments, or aren't even answering calls - pushing more people onto public clinics. At one point the wait for information from Telehealth Ontario was 11 hours.
The result has been a flood of people lining up the moment clinics opened to make sure they got a shot before supplies ran out.
Now, it looks like everyone from the Prime Minister down to local health officials are being blamed for what’s being called a chaotic, bungled mess – and national media continue to play to people’s fears by stressing “rationing” and “shortages” when public health never intended to vaccinate the entire population of the country the first day clinics opened.
As Canada's chief medical officer of health Dr. David Butler-Jones said as late as Sunday evening, 6 million doses of H1N1 vaccine have been sent out, and there will be enough vaccine produced to innoculate everyone in the country by December. That was the original plan, and that still hasn’t changed.
What’s changed is that now, a lot more people will decide to get the shot, and everyone wants it right now. And being unable to predict that sudden shift in opinion and prepare for it really can’t be blamed on the federal government or health officials.
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