New York, NY –
Thousands of people have been lining up for H1N1 flu shots across the country, many of them waiting for hours. But not here in New York City. Free vaccine clinics have not drawn large crowds. Now, as WNYC's Fred Mogul reports, health officials are expanding access to the vaccine.
REPORTER: The city initially offered swine flu vaccine to the top group at risk for it: school-age children. But students and their parents mostly stayed away in droves last weekend, the first of five weekend vaccine clinics. So, today the Health Department announced it was expanding the groups who are eligible for the shots; now the age group is anyone ages four through 24, and anyone up to 64 years of age with various underlying health conditions, including asthma, diabetes and heart disease. Also eligible are pregnant women and caregivers of newborn children up to 6 months of age. For WNYC I’m Fred Mogul.
More information on locations, hours and eligibility, is here.
Fred Mogul has been covering healthcare and medicine for WNYC since 2002. His beat takes him to hospitals, community clinics, doctors offices, health agencies, public schools and research labs across the metropolitan area. His work has appeared on NPR and in the New York Times, Time magazine and Philadelphia Inquirer, among others.
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