Howard County health officials had other deadly diseases on their minds as they administered 2,081 flu shots Sunday.
“We?re seeing how our emergency systems would play out in the event of a smallpox breakout or anthrax or the plague,” said Dr. Penny Borenstein, Howard County?s health officer.
Howard County held a drive-through flu clinic, one of the largest in the nation?s history, to immunize the public for the seasonal illness, but also to test its emergency systems. Cars lined up between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. along a two-mile outer loop of Columbia Gateway Drive.
Fire Chief Joseph Herr said the county?s emergency responders were keeping a close eye on the clinic as workers attempted to administer vaccines to 500 people an hour ? an increase from the 300 people per hour immunized at earlier clinics.
Officials will start looking for ways to immunize 1,000 people an hour, he said.
The wait to get a flu shot was on average 1 1/2 hours, officials said. While waiting in line, Columbia residents Don and Colleen Cox said their wait would be closer to 2 1/2 hours.
“Some people were getting mad at the wait, but we?re not. We?re just people watching,” Don Cox said.
In addition to flu shots, the FluMist nasal vaccine was being sold $20 per vaccine, but free to children younger than 11.
