H1N1 vaccines coming for every Capitol Hill worker who wants to get one

The Capitol’s medical authority stressed that every lawmaker and staffer who wants the swine flu vaccine will eventually be able to get it once the doses begin to arrive on the Hill over the next couple weeks.

Immunization was one of many preventive tips that a staff physician with the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) gave to a room of about 50 staffers and Capitol Hill employees on Friday, adding that if they do fall ill with flu-like symptoms, the Capitol Police can’t force them to leave work, but they should go home.

“We love you and we appreciate your work ethic, but we don’t want others around you to get sick,” he said.

The physician said he doesn’t know exactly when the vaccine, expected sometime this month, will arrive on Capitol Hill or how much will arrive in the first shipments, but that with 20 million doses being manufactured each week, there will be enough to go around.

“There’s going to be enough for everybody who wants to get it,” said the doctor. “It just may take a week or two for us to get a hold of it. There may be a shortage in the first week or two as production ramps up. But in the long term, I don’t think we’re going to be turning anyone away.”

The physician with the OAP also took the time to dispel a rumor raised by a House staffer “that by Oct. 15th 20 percent of the offices will be out sick with the flu.”

While the OAP has planned for the worst-case scenario of more than 300 Capitol Hill staffers, officers or members of Congress – or 2 percent of Capitol Hill’s working population – contracting the H1N1 virus at a time, they do not believe that it will be that bad.

“We don’t think that’s going to happen, but it’s smart to plan for that, and to have a plan in place for your office for if 20 or 40 percent of the people are gone; can they work from home? How are they going to get here if their kids are sick? All of those things are good to think about,” said the physician. “But it’s more of a planning scenario than a prediction of what’s really going to happen.”

Physicians with the OAP said the office will be strictly adhering to the guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which stipulates that women, children under 5 years old, health professionals, and people with pre-existing medical conditions or immune-deficiency diseases will take priority in getting treatment and immunizations.

Members of Congress will not receive preferential treatment because of their congressional status, but because many lawmakers have medical conditions they may be considered to be high-risk, said the physician.

“Capitol Hill’s full of high-risk people: children, tourists, pages, pregnant women and people with chronic medical conditions,” he said.

“Most of the members of Congress and the Supreme Court have some kind of chronic medical condition simply because of their age…[The CDC is] suggesting right now that [the vaccine is] going to be limited the first couple of weeks and that we target those high-risk groups first.”

The doctor with the OAP recommended that members and staff get the H1N1 shot in addition to the seasonal flu shot, because the viruses operate differently and one vaccine will not suffice for both illnesses.

Due to a “robust” number of requests, the OAP has run out of seasonal flu shots but more are expected to arrive within the next several weeks.

An employee of the Architect of the Capitol’s office raised his concern that if sick staff members took the recommended 7 days or 24 hours without a fever (absent use of anti-inflammation medicine) to recoup from the H1N1 virus, it may cut too deeply into their sick time for the rest of the year.

“It’s a problem,” said the OAP physician. “And that’s why we’ve been proactive from the start in talking with the leadership on Capitol Hill to let them know that it could be a problem. They’re aware of the situation.”