FAIL: Kane County H1N1 Vaccine Clinics
Kane County held the first of several Monday clinics today at three local high schools. For some silly reason, they decided 4pm to 9pm was reasonable. Which, in theory, it certainly is. But when you have people panicking about a possible pandemic…no, that is not reasonable. That is not reasonable at-fucking-all.
I’m supposedly at the front of the front of the line. I’m in the at-risk group (under 24s) and I work with young children in a public school. Pretty much everyone wants people like me vaccinated. And that’s all fine and well, if that whole “front of the line” idea actually meant something. Which it doesn’t. It’s first come first serve, no matter what your risk is, who you are, etc. In a “fair” and “equal” society that’s probably not a bad thing, but in the world of science and disease control, you really do want to get your vaccine to certain segments sooner. First come first serve isn’t going to deliver that. Neither is exceedingly stupid clinic hours.
Normal people, I hear, tend to work to 5pm. I get off at 3:45 (though I snuck out at 3:35 to try and get to St. Charles North High School in a timely manner). Considering I had no hope at all to get a vaccine, I think it’s safe to say that most people working full time didn’t either. Not unless they wanted to take the day off. A lot of us can’t afford to do that. I can’t on a monetary or an ethical level. Any day I take off work, my students–and particularly my special buddy–suffer.
I drove up Rt. 31 from Fabyan. I was lucky and managed to not hit the massive traffic jam also trying to get to St. Charles North until after Rt. 64. But hooboy, when the traffic stopped, the traffic stopped. It took me about an hour to get from Rt.64 to St. Charles North. I tried to call my mother when I saw the line, only to be informed that the cellular network in the area was being reserved for 911 and emergency calls only. Um, what? Oh, and then there was the line of a couple thousand people that wrapped entirely around the high school which, as anyone from around here knows, is not a small one. I turned around and left. I don’t have endless time to wait outside in the rain. I have homework to do. Research reading + rain = not going to happen.
Entirely poor planning for something so in demand. Turns out Kane County only has about 12000 doses. And since they don’t seem to be planning this out in the smartest of ways, my only conclusion is that we are all doomed.
Tags: FAIL, H1N1, health, Kane County
October 27th, 2009 at 1:05 am
WTF! Did you get your H1N1 shot after all that?
October 27th, 2009 at 1:47 am
No.
And the way they’re doing it in other counties is makes way more sense. You can make an appointment. You have to be a resident though, which means I’m stuck with this crappy system.