Los Angeles County's free H1N1 flu clinics opened last week amid public health officials' promises to aggressively vaccinate people at highest risk, especially the uninsured. Instead, overwhelmed clinic staff began vaccinating many people who were not supposed to be first in line for protection, officials said Tuesday.
"We thought it was important to get to as many people as quickly as possible," said Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, the county's director of public health. "We were assuming that the private sector was going to be getting a lot more vaccine a lot faster than they did."
Fielding conceded that county officials failed to conserve vaccine supplies early on, unwilling to turn away those who had traveled and waited in line. By Tuesday, they faced a vaccine shortage, with only enough doses to stay open through Nov. 4 instead of the planned Nov. 8.
"How do those people feel when they came a long way and in many cases are part of a family?" Fielding said. "What do we say -- we'll do your children but we won't do you?"
In recent days as demand for the scarce vaccines has increased and anxiety has grown, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say many public health clinics have reported needing to intensify screening to take care of the most vulnerable first.
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