No shortage of flu vaccine in Tulsa

This year's version of the flu bug has been particularly nasty "there are a lot more folks that are really laid up over this particular flu virus than what you may normally see" Todd Pendergraft told KRMG news.

Todd is the pharmacist at Broken Arrow Family drug, he told us it's not hard to see when someone is coming in to get help. "Absolutely" he chuckled. "They look miserable they're coughing, hopefully they sent a family member instead of dragging themselves in" he went on.

You may have heard that the vaccine is hard to come by but Todd told us that’s not the case. “I think that’s been overplayed a little bit” he began. “I don’t think there is truly that much of a shortage of a vaccine, I’ve not had any troubles getting it.”

Todd let us in on a secret. The supply isn’t an issue, it’s how you manage it. “As a business owner early in the vaccination season you kind of guestimate how many doses of the vaccine you are going to administer to your patients” he pointed out.

The reason is money. “Places don’t want to order a lot more of the vaccine and then end up with a lot of it sitting on the shelf going to waste at the end of the season because you can’t get any credit for it when the season is over.”

To listen to the entire interview with Todd click here.

So for those giving the vaccines it’s a guessing game “you want to make sure to have enough to take care of your patients but not so much that you end up with a huge supply of it at the end of the season.”

Pendergraft told us he has seen and heard of some pretty usual “natural” methods of dealing with the bug as well. “One of the internet memes that’s going around right now is cutting an onion and putting it in a drawer, something of that nature.” Todd laughed when he said “there’s nothing to that.”

Todd does have some good news about the end of the flu season. “We’re probably at the peak here now, it would not surprise me if it didn’t taper off in the next few weeks.”

Todd says by the middle of February this should be mostly behind us with spring allergies on the way.