By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Doniphan County health officials will hold a drive thru vaccine clinic tomorrow.
Doniphan County Health Director Cheryl Pierce says now is the right time to come and get your flu shot.
"You want your flu vaccine to not wane until at least until towards the end of February, after Christmas is usually when we're hit hardest by influenza, the regular flu, because people have all got together over Christmas and the holidays," Pierce tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "So, that's why we wait until October."
Pierce says by waiting until the end of September or early October to hold this event, people that come and get their shots will have built up immunity by those peak times during flu season.
Pierce says this is a clinic that has been held almost every year.
"Just because we have a large constituency that loves us doing that drive thru, it's in our alley right behind the health department, October 7th from 9am to 6pm," Pierce explains. "You can go to our website or pick up any of the consent forms at the banks and post offices around our county and have the information pre filled out."
Pierce says having that paperwork pre-filled out will get you through the line quicker as you get your shots.
Pierce says normally they give out between 300 and 500 shots during the drive thru clinic.
"That's a big bunch, that's about how many flu shots we give each year," Pierce says. "It's kind of an exercise for us too, if we did have to do mass dispensing of medications this would be the way that we do it in the event of any other biological event the health department would have to respond too."