November 20th, 2009 by MWilhelm

Getting a swine flu shot was never so much fun for some kids at Pilgrim High School yesterday. It meant hanging around with friends, tapping out some tunes with drum sticks on the back of an auditorium seat and then, after the moment of truth, 15 minutes of lounging around.

Of course, not all students took it so easily.

“We try to take their attention off of it. Some of them need a little extra TLC,” said school nurse Kathy Gage. And there were a few students who either were so anxious or adversely reacted to the needle that they had to be treated independently.

But other than those few situations, the school department’s first H1N1 virus clinic in a secondary school went smoothly although it was noisy. Elementary school clinics are conducted after school between the hours of 4 and 8 p.m.

Adding to what was almost a jovial atmosphere at Pilgrim was the fact that school attendance has picked up since the end of October when absenteeism throughout the school system was running as high as 15-percent and in some schools twice that. If students were concerned about the swine flu, they weren’t voicing it.

“I don’t like shots,” said senior Cassie Graves, “but my mom filled it (the consent form) out for me.”

Another senior, Ivan Antunes, said the vaccination “was easy. I think a lot of people have over-reacted. It’s not a big deal.”

Joey Ledo was of like mind.

“It wasn’t bad at all, I feel fine,” he said.

Richard D’Agostino, director of special services who is coordinating school clinics, said that school absenteeism has dropped to normal levels for this time of year – about 5 percent.

“I don’t want to say the flu is over,” he said explaining that health officials project an outbreak can last between four and six weeks.

“Either we’re half way through it or we’re on the down side,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health reported a statewide improvement in student attendance. She said that on average about 5,000 students between kindergarten and grade 12 are vaccinated daily. She said there are sufficient doses to carry out clinics scheduled for next week. No clinics are scheduled on Thanksgiving Day or the following day.

Participation at the elementary schools is running between 80 and 90 percent.

Yesterday Pilgrim Principal Dennis Mullen said more than 900 consent forms were returned. The school has a student population of 1,226 meaning 73 percent of the students participated. Statewide participation at secondary schools is running about 60 percent.

Alyssa Sullivan was one of those who chose not to get vaccinated.

“I’m not a big shot person,” she said, “I’d rather get it with my doctor.”

That doesn’t mean Sullivan was without a job. She stood at one end of the auditorium stage to write the time on the lapel labels of students who had just been vaccinated.

She told them to wait in the auditorium for 15 minutes from that time before leaving.

The Health Department announced yesterday a clinic for students attending schools outside the state for Saturday, Dec. 12 at a time and place to be announced. Parents and guardians must pre-register on line by Dec. 2 by going to the department Web site: www.health.ri.gov.

The department is also making the vaccine available to postpartum mothers up to 6 months as well as newly pregnant women. Women should contact their physicians. Since the H1N1 vaccine has been available 5,000 pregnant women have been vaccinated.

Since this latest round of H1N1 virus there two children have died and there have been 179 confirmed hospitalized cases of swine flu plus an additional 89 probable cases.

While cases of the flu appear to have tapered off, Gage at Pilgrim urged that parents take advantage of the program to have their children vaccinated.