This story appeared in 9&10 News. Read the full story here.
During the pandemic we’ve been getting used to getting our meals at the drive-thru or getting food to go. But this year you can also get your flu vaccine the same way.
Health Departments across northern Michigan are offering drive-thru flu vaccination clinics. They are free of charge with no appointment required. At Monday’s event in Traverse City, the Grand Traverse County Health Department teamed up with Munson Healthcare and Grand Traverse Metro Fire to host to host the mobile event. They say with COVID cases surging, your flu shot is more important than ever.
Mike Lahey with the Grand Traverse Co. Health Department says, “The flu vaccine is critical every year to develop immunity in our community. But this year with the prevalence of COVID and the spikes of COVID that we’ve seen in our communities over the last 30 days, two months, it’s more important than ever, to get that vaccination rate up to immunize our community. So that the healthcare systems and front line staff can really triage some between COVID and influenza in our community.”
Lahey says in a way, this is a test run for what we might see with a COVID vaccine. “We’ve always done these events every year, but we’re ramping up these opportunities, size and scale, so we know what does and doesn’t work when it does come time to roll out the COVID vaccination.”
The Health Department says seeing an increase in the flu vaccination rate will help immunize the community. That will ease the burden so healthcare systems can address the needs of caring for COVID patients.