Signal Staff Writer
bcharles@the-signal.com
Posted: Nov. 10, 2009 9:28 p.m.
LOS ANGELES — The swine flu epidemic has reached a peak and will likely begin to decline, though it could later return, the county’s public health director said Tuesday.
After months of public worry and vaccine shortages, the official gave the prognosis to Los Angeles County supervisors.
With 74 confirmed deaths from H1N1 swine flu in Los Angeles County dating back to May, Department of Public Health Director Dr. John Fielding said he thinks the worst of the epidemic may have passed, but there is no way to be absolutely sure.
“(The virus is) near or at its peak,” he said.
Fielding hedged his comments with a warning that the swine flu hasn’t released its grip on the county or the nation.
“There is a chance that as this flu abates, it can come back again,” he said. “I’m not sure there won’t be a second, third or fourth wave.”
Meanwhile, supervisors blamed the media for causing the panic that led to the high demand for, and subsequent shortage of, vaccine.
“What has happened to date has not been acceptable,” said Mark Ridley Thomas, Los Angeles County Second District Supervisor.
“The media helped create the panic,” said Don Knabe, Fourth District County Supervisor.
Fifth District Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who represents the Santa Clarita Valley, “understands the department is under a lot of pressure because of media-generated onslaught of panic,” said his spokesman, Tony Bell. “This flu is no more hazardous than a seasonal flu.”
To date the county has come up short of demand for the swine flu vaccine. That has forced the cancelation of scheduled vaccination clinics for H1N1 flu including one that had been scheduled for the Santa Clarita Valley in October.
“Too much turnout, too little juice,” Knabe said.
County health officials want to vaccinate as many of the 5.5 million Los Angeles County residents in the risk group as possible. But delays and shortfalls in the production of H1N1 vaccine have left the county with enough vaccine to inoculate a fraction of the people at risk.
About 810,000 swine flu vaccinations have either been received or ordered in Los Angeles County. Private health care providers received 538,000 of those vaccines, with the county receiving the remaining 272,000.
The limited supply of vaccine caused the county to back off on plans to air commercials on radio and television telling people to get the vaccine.
With a limited supply and the chance that residents have not seen the last of H1N1, Fielding expressed his own frustrations with battling the latest pandemic flu.
“What’s been most difficult,” he said, “is not knowing whether you’re going to have vaccine.”
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