Burke resident Glenda Scheiner was one of the lucky ones at the Fairfax County H1N1 mass vaccination clinic Saturday, Nov. 7. Hundreds of people, having heard stories the last couple weeks about flu shot clinics quickly reaching capacity, lined up as early as 6:30 a.m. for the 9 a.m. opening.

The people who felt it was better to be safe than sorry waited in line for as long as two hours to receive a vaccination for the highly contagious form of influenza, and their patience was rewarded. Scheiner, however, was one of those who couldn’t make it out at the crack of dawn, and due to effective planning by the county’s health department, ended up having perhaps the easiest, least time-consuming experience of all.

“It was so easy and so fast,” said Scheiner, who brought her two children. “They had such an ample staff and the whole thing took 25 minutes from beginning to end. We never really stopped to wait.”

Scheiner’s experience with the mass vaccination clinic, which was open 9 a.m.-5 p.m., at the Fairfax County Government Center, was typical for anyone arriving after noon, a welcome development for all those who, like Scheiner, could not arrive earlier.

“The key here today is the number of vaccinators that we have,” said Glen Barbour, public safety information officer for the Fairfax County Department of Health. “We have a maximum capacity of 1,200 to 1,500 [vaccinations] an hour and we’re cranking through it as quickly as we can. A man even told me that he was in and out within 8 minutes.”

The department of health was able to have such a large capacity due to the large number of staffers brought in to run the clinic, Barbour said. In addition to health department staff handling the flow of people in and around the building, contracted nurses and nurses from the Medical Reserve Corps, a civilian volunteer organization, administered the vaccines by nasal spray and injection in 10 different rooms. Each of the rooms had about seven vaccinators, 75 in total. This large-scale operation allowed them to serve nearly 7,494 people in one day, whereas it took almost three weeks to reach 14,000 at all of the county’s health clinics.

“They made it so easy,” said Fairfax resident Abas Bazid. “I have four kids and they finished in 35 minutes. The staff moved quickly and we didn’t have to wait at all.”

According to Barbour, the large number of people getting the vaccinations this year essentially forced the health department to plan such an intricate and involved event. Barbour said that in a typical year, only about 2,500 people come into county health department clinics to receive the shots and sprays because of the widespread availability of the vaccination at places like CVS Pharmacies. However, because the H1N1 virus spread so quickly, making it difficult to create a vaccine, the health department was the only entity to receive it. Hence, instead of a wide dispersal of people, local clinics were bombarded, creating the need for the mass clinic.

“The burden is on us right now because we’ve got the vaccine,” Barbour said. “Most people get it in the community, but this year, with the problems in production and distribution, the burden has been shifted to the public health sector. More vaccine will make its way into the private sector soon, and that’s our goal, for people to get their flu shots where they usually do.”

Until the vaccine reaches the private sector, however, Barbour acknowledged that the health department must fulfill its duty and continue to provide vaccination to anyone who needs it. So, in the meantime, the health department will continue to offer the shots and sprays at their local clinics around the county on scheduled days. Because these locations cannot handle a large number of people, the vaccine will only be offered to pregnant women, parents of children younger than 6 months and children ages 6 months to 18 years.

“The staff was very helpful and gave a great orientation,” said Burke resident Kelly Ferrer. “I think that [the health department] did a fantastic job.”