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Dr. Philip Huang, Dallas County’s health director, wants you to get a flu shot as soon as possible. But you may need to wait for a free one.
The county has nearly depleted its supply of flu vaccinations, and it is unclear when more will arrive, Huang told county commissioners Tuesday.
“We’ve almost accounted for all that we have,” he said.
Huang was unable to immediately provide the number of doses the county has administered so far this season. However, after the meeting, Huang clarified in an email to The Dallas Morning News that the delay is due to the vaccine makers. He anticipates a shipment of 5,000 doses by mid-month.
Flu season runs from October to May.
The push to get Dallasites vaccinated for the flu comes as the number of reported COVID-19 hospitalizations has ticked up. Public health experts have long worried about the convergence of the novel coronavirus pandemic and flu season overrunning the health system.
Commissioner Elba Garcia, a Democrat who represents western Dallas County, said she wants the county to prioritize the ZIP codes hit hardest by COVID-19 when the county’s flu vaccine supply is replenished.
“It’s a big issue, especially in the communities that have been heavily impacted by COVID-19 where access to health care is not possible or denied,” she said. “We need to know exactly when we’ll have the next shipment so we can tell our constituents.”
Manufacturers project that they will make up to 198 million doses of the vaccine for the next flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 100 million vaccines have already been shipped across the country.
Collin County is not experiencing delays in obtaining flu shots, a spokesman said. Tarrant County did not immediately respond to questions from The News about its supply.
It’s unclear how severe the flu season will be. But Dallas has a history of outpacing the country’s average in the number of cases. In 2018, for example, a record-breaking 930 people visited Parkland Memorial Hospital’s emergency room in a single day.
By the end of March 2020, a more mild season, about 2,000 people had been hospitalized for the flu, according to Dallas County data. While that’s a fraction of the number hospitalized for the virus, officials want every available hospital bed open for COVID-19 patients.
Although many people will get their shot from a primary care doctor, Dallas County has one of the highest rates of uninsured people in the nation. That puts the routine flu shot out of reach for about 1 in 4 residents — about 659,000 people.
During the last flu season, Dallas County administered 12,735 doses of the flu vaccine to children and adults, Huang said. The county’s goal is to administer 4,500 doses at clinics by the end of the month.
The department, which has long relied on public health fairs to distribute the vaccine to large groups of people, has been forced to rethink its strategy during the pandemic.
Children can be vaccinated at any Dallas County health clinic by appointment. And events are being planned that will take physical distancing into account, Huang said.