Cars waiting in line formed a queue two or three blocks long on S.W. Seventh Avenue in Albany on Saturday morning. The attraction? Drive-up flu shots.
There’s a big push on this fall to make people get immunized against influenza. Flu shots seem to be on offer everywhere you turn including, of course, the clinics and pharmacies of Samaritan Health Services.
The line of vehicles I encountered on Seventh Avenue Saturday led to a parking lot across the street from Albany General Hospital.
Judging by what I read later on Samaritan’s website, it was the first of six drive-up flu vaccination events for Samaritan patients at that spot. The other five, all from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays, will be on Oct. 17, Nov. 7 and 21, and Dec. 5 and 19.
Samaritan is holding similar drive-up events on the same dates and at the same times in Lebanon, Corvallis, Lincoln City, and Newport, all the places where it has hospitals or clinics.
The attraction is that you don’t have to leave your car to get vaccinated, all in the interest of avoiding contact with strangers during the Age of Covid.
Since I was on the bike, I didn’t join the line for what looked like a long wait. It was not a ride-up but a drive-up event, after all. But seeing this reminded me to get a shot, finally. Which I did, later that day, at the storefront branch of the Corvallis Clinic at Heritage Mall. (hh)
Get the shot, AND wear the mask – simple!
“””Cars waiting in line formed a queue two or three blocks long …”
Worse yet, you need an appointment, with online registration and insurance, so you can’t just abandon the queue if it looks horrible. This must be the worst possible way to get the job done. Just another victim of American Car Culture.
They could have a walk-up with appropriate distancing and masks required and be just as safe as drive-in. Outdoors, in the middle of a big, little-used parking lot. And forget appointments, just first-come first-served with needed registration done online, and dates short enough in advance to avoid bad weather. Another idea: take-a-number, get a text message when your turn is almost up, so you can take a leisurely store-front stroll.
Another point. If it’s so necessary for the public good to get everyone vaccinated, then it should be done by something like a national health service (yes, “single payer”), thereby saving billions of dollars in churn and entropy caused by our over-bureaucratized private/public insurance mess which also fails to reach everyone. Remember, public health. It’s the other guy’s failure that hurts you, just like masking.
For flu shots, the middle ground between private enterprise and government is bad. You can go to any pharmacy to get a flu shot for as low as $25 retail (recent prices, haven’t checked this year). But, if you use Medicare, your doctor’s office (and, I assume, pharmacies) will get much more. This explains why you see big advertising everywhere “Get Your Flu Shot FREE*.” Big FREE, tiny asterisk.
The online material Samaritan put out does not say anything about needing an appointment. It says Samaritan patients “can just drive up for flu vaccinations at our drive-up vaccination clinics — you wont even need to get out of your car.”
Oops, my source was Corvallis Clinic, not Samaritan. Thank you for correcting that.
The G-T had an article with a link that I followed as far as I could without entering personal data. Article says “… every Saturday and Sunday this month …” CC website says “Next availability on Sunday, October 25.” High demand? I like the pharmacy idea better, but then I don’t have a choice since I don’t have a car.
Saturday line for me was 2 hours and I got there at 9:30. Some vehicles had multiple folks plus pets and nurses had to change gloves and sanitize hands after every shot. I think combining retired and working folks on the same day is unfair. I wondered waiting in line if giving pneumonia vaccines would help fight covid in the middle age group?