Macomb County board
chairman declares
‘heightened state of alert’

By Cortney Casey
C & G Staff Writer

MACOMB COUNTY — Local residents lined up hours in advance outside Freedom Hill County Park Oct. 28 for the first installment in a series of free H1N1 vaccine clinics.

The Macomb County Health Department planned to administer the intranasal form of the immunization Oct. 28-29 and the injectable version Oct. 30-31.

While news outlets were reporting gridlock near Freedom Hill in the early morning hours of Oct. 28, with lines of traffic extending west of Schoenherr, the congestion cleared quickly once the gates opened just before 8:30 a.m. The clinic — the first of its kind scheduled for the area — was set to begin at 9 a.m.

An orderly queue of people, mainly parents with children in tow, extended from Independence Hall toward the Freedom Hill Amphitheatre, with only a few visible hiccups caused by would-be line jumpers.

Dan Artman, a spokesman for the Macomb County Health Department, said about 1,250 people got inoculated Oct. 28. Officials planned to have 3,000 doses on hand each day.

Warren resident Misty Ryan said she’d never before sought a flu immunization for herself or her son, Brandon Paquette, 7. But the nature of her job and the hype over H1N1 convinced her to come out Oct. 28.

“I decided to get my son the vaccine because I’m a health care worker; I work in a doctor’s office,” she said. “I deal with lots of people and patients every day. And he’s also in school and day care, and so he’s with a lot of different people throughout the day, and it could spread very easily. I love my son, and I just want to keep him safe.”

Ryan said she didn’t mind waiting in the lengthy line.

“You know what, there’s a lot of people in this world, so it’s going to be a little bit hard to get something that everybody wants at the same time,” she said. “It would be like that anywhere you go. So it’s something that you’ve got to deal with if you want something.”

Colleen Babbitt of Fraser, who brought her two children, heard that others showed up as early as 4:30 a.m. to stake their place, but she was only about 20 cars back from the front of the line when she arrived at Freedom Hill around 7 a.m.

“I have to say, I’m pretty impressed,” she said. “It turned out that we’re pretty far up in line, so I’m pretty excited.”

Babbitt, who said she also got immunized for the seasonal flu for the first time in about four years, opted to pursue the H1N1 vaccine for her family “because both of my kids — I’m just worried; I’d rather take a chance of the risks they’re saying and make sure they’re healthy.

“I don’t know if it’s a big media hype or not, but I’m pretty worried about it,” she added. “It’s kind of scary.”

Kathy Riddle, a data processor with the Macomb County Health Department, was responsible for tallying attendees as they streamed into the building. She thought the process seemed to be working well.

“It takes a long time because everything has to be done in a certain order,” she said, ticking off the steps preceding inoculation, including completing a health form, reading materials regarding privacy and the vaccine itself, and getting screened to ensure eligibility.

FluMist, the intranasal vaccine, is only intended for “healthy, non-pregnant persons” who are 2-24 years old; are 25-49 years old and live with or care for infants under 6 months old; or are health care or emergency medical personnel ages 25-49.

The injectable vaccine is intended for anyone 6 months to 24 years old; pregnant women; new parents and household contacts of children under 6 months old; adults ages 25-65 with medical conditions that increase their risk of suffering influenza complications; and health care or emergency medical personnel, regardless of age.

Monitored by Macomb County sheriff’s deputies, the line wound through the building, with attendees filling out paperwork in the hallways before entering the main room, where Health Department employees quickly administered the vaccines at numbered stations.

Many recipients walked out swabbing their noses with Kleenex, and children bore stickers declaring, “It’s cool to be healthy.”

As he surveyed the bustle of activity, Michael Parent, director of the Macomb County Health Department’s Family Health Services Division, said everything appeared to be going smoothly.

“Certainly, we expected to have a large number of people first thing this morning,” he said, “and that’s what we had.”

Running such clinics is nothing new for the Health Department, he noted, but the task of vaccinating against H1N1 was compounded by the “magnitude of the problem.” 

While dates and times for the first two clinics were set the week prior, the county added the second pair just days in advance as flu cases mounted.

“We basically doubled both the number of clinics, from two to four, and the amount of vaccine available, from 6,000 to 12,000,” said Artman.

The move came as Macomb County Board of Commissioners Chairman Paul Gieleghem declared a “county heightened state of alert” due to the threat of a flu pandemic, stemming from the volume of expected and reported cases of H1N1 in the state and country, as well as globally.

In a release announcing the designation, county officials indicated they were “implementing activities to safeguard the interests of the county, instituting a mass vaccination program and preparing for a potential emergency.”

The additional sessions, said Artman, were an attempt to partially compensate for a series of 140 canceled clinics that were originally scheduled to occur in public schools countywide.

Those clinics, to be held in conjunction with 21 local school districts and the Macomb Intermediate School District, were called off due to the vaccine’s scarcity. The issue occurred at the production level; it didn’t stem from lack of planning on the county’s part, noted Artman.

“Those had to be indefinitely postponed due to inadequate supplies from the manufacturers,” he said.

There are approximately 150,000 eligible recipients among Macomb County’s K-12 population, said Artman, but not all of those who qualified would have chosen to receive it.

The Health Department also recently distributed 10,500 doses of the H1N1 vaccine, a mixture of injectable and intranasal, to private physician offices, focusing primarily on pediatricians, OB/GYNs and family physicians in an effort to target the highest risk groups: pregnant women and young children, he said.

According to Artman, data shows instances of flu rising as the weeks go by.

The week of Oct. 11-17, there were 1,612 Macomb County and 13,203 Michigan cases of “influenza-like illness” — which can denote any type of flu, including seasonal or H1N1 — tallied, he said.

The week prior to that, the county had 1,262 flu cases, while the state had 8,226, he said.

While he had no figures immediately available for Michigan for Oct. 18-24, Macomb County reported 1,521, he added.

In comparison, Michigan Disease Surveillance System reports cited by the Michigan Department of Community Health showed 7,817 cases of “flu-like illness” Oct. 19-28, 2008, and 9,317 Oct. 20-26, 2007.

MDSS tallied 404,476 and 416,972 total cases of flu-like illness statewide in 2007 and 2008, respectively, compared to 418,191 already year-to-date for 2009 as of Oct. 24.

Artman said the county would likely hold additional vaccine clinics in the future. He advised residents to call the Health Department’s flu hotline at (586) 466-7923 or check www.macombcountymi.gov/publichealth periodically for more information.

You can reach Staff Writer Cortney Casey at ccasey@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1046.