Video Transcript:

GLORIA PENNER (Host): The San Diego Unified School District voted earlier this week to turn some school sites into mass vaccination clinics for swine flu. KPBS education reporter Ana Tintocalis is here to talk about how local schools are dealing with the flu.  Welcome to you Ana. 

ANA TINTOCALIS (KPBS News): Thank you.

PENNER: How widespread is the swine flu, H1N1, in the schools?

TINTOCALIS:  I think it's a lot more widespread than people realize, the San Diego County public health officials announced last week that about 30 San Diego county schools have experienced swine flu outbreaks, and that's just in the past 3 weeks.  And they're investigating at least 8 schools for possible swine flu outbreaks.  And the thing that is concerning is that public health officials say that the virus is probably circulating around even at more schools that they haven't gotten to just yet.  So it's very concerning for parents, and these outbreaks are taking place from North County to the South Bay, and these numbers that I'm saying right now most likely will be outdated by next week.

PENNER: Sure, and so there are going to be clinics opening the schools to vaccinate with the swine flu vaccine

TINTOCALIS: That's right 

PENNER: How's that going to work?

TINTOCALIS:  Well San Diego Unified, which is the largest district in the county voted this week to allow public health officials to come on campus and set up these makeshift vaccination clinics.  And details are still forming in terms of how they will work, they're still figuring out what schools will have these clinics.  I have heard though however that a batch of vaccinations should be distributed in some of these school clinics by November 9th, the week of November 9th.  So you should be seeing some school clinics popping up in the next couple weeks.

PENNER: So we don't know now which schools, but do we know who's going to be vaccinated? Just the kids or families or what?

TINTOCALIS: Well so far, these school clinics will be really catering to the school community so for sure the kids, parents, teachers, school staff, and perhaps some nearby residents.  Schools are the center of a community, so they're really looking to these areas to take care of the citizens there. 

PENNER:  Alright so CCDC has recommendations regarding school-age children getting vaccinated.  What are those recommendations?

TINTOCALIS:  Well and those recommendations have changed.  A couple weeks ago they said anyone from 0-24 years old should get the vaccination, because of the amount of vaccination that we have available, they've changed that now to young kids from two years old, to eighteen years old should, without chronicle medical conditions, should get the vaccination.

PENNER: Alright now we learned just this morning that 78,000 unexpected doses came into the county.  Do we know whether any of those are going into the schools? 

TINTOCALIS:  I would think some of that would go into the schools again it's very difficult to figure out how this will all play out.  The school districts are saying "hey this is a county public health issue because public health officials will be running the show at these school clinics.  So I think they're trying to figure out number one what schools will be open first, and which should get the vaccinations.  

PENNER: Just very quickly now, when a kid gets sick and it's diagnosed as H1N1, is that child sent home and told to stay home for a week, two weeks, how does that work?

TINTOCALIS: Absolutely.  They're asked to stay home until they send their child to the doctor and figure out exactly what is happening, and schools, now school districts, they have guidelines in terms of when to tell parents there is a situation at their school, so if 10% of a student population at a school is absent, then that school has a possible outbreak situation and has to tell parents that this is what's happening.

PENNER: Ok thank you very much, Ana Tintocalis.  The CDC is recommending that the following groups get the H1N1 vaccine: Pregnant woman, caregivers of children younger than six months old, health care workers, children and young adults 6 months- 24 years, adults 25-64 years old with underlying medical conditions, and you can find more swine flu information on our website, kpbs.org/swineflu.