Heading into flu season, the Brownsville Independent School District is following lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic by purchasing doses of the QAV high-dose flu vaccine to vaccinate faculty and staff against the seasonal flu.
In the years before COVID, the flu killed thousands of people every year dating all the way back to the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic, which killed 675,000 people in the United States, about the same as COVID-19 currently, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Although the two diseases are only roughly similar, the defense against them is much the same, face masks, vaccines, social distancing and good basic hygiene, the Associated Press and others have reported.
“It’s very important for people to not just get their COVID vaccines but also their flu vaccines because flu’s still out there whether or not people think it’s ended, it’s still out there,” Alonso Guerrero. BISD director of nursing services, said.
Andrew Pekosz, a virologist and professor of microbiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, predicted a strong flu season to the American Association of Retired People.
“You can never predict with 100% certainty, but all signs predict influenza will be back this year, and data from Australia suggests it will be a strong flu season,” he said.
Guerrero said teams of BISD nurses would travel the district, offering flu vaccinations at four campuses a day so every employee who wants a flu vaccine can get one, faculty and staff, not students because they’re minors and require parental approval. The district has purchased 3,000 flu vaccines to begin the effort.
Guerrero said the district is urging parents to take students to their pediatrician or to one of the clinics BISD and the Brownsville Community Health Center offer for low-income families at 2137 E. 22nd St. and 191 E. Price Road.
“We’re going to be proactive, do our employees first, then students, partner up with some clinics,” he said, adding that BISD has a longstanding agreement with BCHC.
“They help us with our low-income students to get low-cost healthcare. As we see the need for different things we’ll call them up. For example last year we had a large number of students that needed vaccinations, so they opened up several Saturdays for them.”
Guerrero said BISD continues to offer COVID-19 vaccination clinics, most recently on Tuesday at the Brownsville Events Center, where about 100 were vaccinated.
“We have to learn to live with all these different viruses. For example when flu first came out in 1918, they went through a similar thing to what we had to deal with 100 years later. We’re still going through it with the flu, we just have to learn to live with it. We’re coping with it and what I’m foreseeing for the near future is that they make up a combination of the flu shot and COVID at the same time,” he said.
Early in the pandemic, BISD became a certified vaccine provider, meaning it could administer COVID vaccines to BISD students and staff as well as the community.
The district recently upgraded its vaccination site in the Central Administration Building, 708 Palm Blvd,
It ordered 3,000 doses of the QAV high-dose flu vaccine, the kind the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends for anyone 6 months or older, although BISD will only administer the vaccines to faculty and staff.
Walgreens, Walmart, H-E-B, CVC and other pharmacies also are offering or will offer the shots.
The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months or older get vaccinated against the flu beginning Oct. 1. It recommends three vaccines including the one BISD is using, and a stronger dose for adults 65 and older.
