A line of hundreds of patients stretched around the outside of Kaiser Permanente’s Cascade Park facility in Vancouver on Saturday morning, showing a strong start to the health care provider’s annual flu vaccination campaign.
Flu shot clinics are a regular October occurrence, but this year’s efforts are complicated by the need to maintain safe social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of setting up flu shot clinics inside its offices, Kaiser is operating a series of outdoor clinics in either a drive-thru or walk-up format.
The choice of format typically comes down to the amount of available queue space for cars, Kaiser officials said. The Cascade Park clinic at 12607 S.E. Mill Plain Blvd. is a walk-up, with a large outdoor tent divided into ten vaccination stations separated by plastic sheeting.
A check-in desk partway through the line, patients are given a survey form to fill out while they wait, as part of the COVID-19 symptom screening process. The front of the line feeds through a processing tent before arriving at the clinic tent, where patients are called to a station either individually or as families.
Cascade Park Kaiser Flu shot clinic
Where: 12607 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver,
Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.
Information: Walk-up clinics run more like traditional flu clinics. Park your car, walk up and take your place in our physically distanced line.
On the Web:healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/oregon-washington/health-wellness/flu
Staff at Cascade Park anticipated higher visitor volumes on the first day than in previous years, according to clinic manager April Jackson, and prepared for it by setting up extra staff as greeters and wayfinders for people in the line and drivers in the parking lot.
“It was pretty much all hands on deck,” she said. “As many people as we could get.”
The clinic wasn’t scheduled to open until 9 a.m., she said, but patients were already lined up at 7 a.m. and the staff opted to get started just after 8 a.m. to make sure everyone would be able to get through the line. The wait time was more than 45 minutes at its peak, but shortened to about half an hour later in the morning.
The Cascade Park flu shot clinic — along with all of Kaiser’s flu shot clinics in Oregon and Washington –will run Monday through Saturday through the end of October. Operating hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Patients should bring their member ID, a photo ID and wear a mask.
Cascade Park is the only Kaiser flu clinic location in Clark County, but members can look up other clinic locations at healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/oregon-washington/health-wellness/flu. Clark County residents can also look up their nearest flu vaccination location at vaccinefinder.org, according to a press release from Clark County Public Health.
Experts say flu vaccination is especially critical this year because the health care system is already struggling under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Flu shots are the best way to prevent influenza illness and hospitalizations,” Clark County Public Health Officer Dr. Alan Melnick said in a statement. “By getting a flu shot, we will all do our part to ensure our health care system isn’t overburdened while influenza and COVID-19 are circulating in our community.”
Some of the symptoms of the flu overlap with those of COVID-19, and it’s possible to have both illnesses at the same time. But the flu alone can still be fatal.
“What I think people really forget is that flu is a deadly disease,” said Ruthie Berrell, Kaiser’s flu clinic coordinator for the northwest region.
A flu vaccine reduces the risk of illness by 40 to 60 percent, she said, and it reduces the risk of hospitalization by 40 percent in adults. Anyone over the age of 6 months should get a vaccine, she added, especially people over the age of 65.
It’s also better to do it as early as possible — meaning September or October. Flu season typically peaks between November and February, Berrell said, so waiting too far into the fall can put people at increased risk of infection, especially because the vaccine takes time to become fully effective.
“It takes about two weeks once you get the flu shot for antibodies to be at full strength,” she said.
