Skagit County Receives Batch of Flu Vaccine (Source: Skagit County Herald)
From the article:
Hesselgrave International, a Bellingham-based bus tour company, is offering $50 trips to Vancouver, B.C. The cost includes a flu shot at a Canadian clinic.
The Mount Vernon Senior Center heard about the trips and started telling its clients to contact the company. The senior center itself cannot organize a trip to Canada.
“The rumor that we heard, and the reason we called, was that they were taking people up to Canada, and we don’t have any other alternative to get people the shot,” said Kristl Torset, the senior center’s coordinator.
Hesselgrave starts booking for the flu shot trips on Monday. Buses will leave Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, said Darlene Larson, the tour planner.
Larson said she cannot promise everyone that makes the trip a shot since she has no control over the doses. But she said she has been assured by a doctor in Vancouver, B.C., that there will be enough vaccine.
“I’m not going to use the word guarantee, but he told me he had enough to last a few weeks,” Larson said. “He just ordered 5,000.”
Hesselgrave has partnered with Travel Medicine & Vaccination Center, which operates nine clinics, four of which are in Vancouver, B.C.
Larson said Hesselgrave plans to offer the bus trips until the Canadian clinic’s supply is gone, or until interest around Bellingham and Mount Vernon wanes.
But as Larson prepares to book the trips, word has come from Canada’s vaccine manufacturers that the supply is starting to run out.
ID Biomedical, based in Vancouver, B.C., said Friday it has no more vaccine to give to private clinics.