VICTORIA, B.C. – It was Bud Brown’s boss at Freddie’s Casino in Everett who encouraged him to get a flu shot this year.
Normally that would mean little more than driving to his doctor’s office and rolling up his sleeve.
With this year’s national flu vaccine shortage, though, it meant a predawn trip to Seattle for the 69-year-old Lake Stevens resident to catch a ride on the Victoria Clipper.
Monday was the first day of a special package deal. The Seattle-to-Victoria passenger service was offering a guaranteed flu shot and the trip for $105.
With many Washington residents unable to find the shot anywhere else and no guarantees of getting one soon, callers deluged the ship’s reservation lines with inquiries – nearly from the moment the deal was announced Thursday.
Brown said he didn’t mind the trip to Victoria to get his flu vaccination. But he and other passengers weren’t quite ready for the near-celebrity reception they got once the boat docked in Canada.
Television cameras filmed the passengers as they disembarked. American and Canadian newspaper and radio reporters interviewed them as they lined up in a room inside the ship’s terminal to get the vaccination. Photographers snapped pictures as 169 passengers-turned-patients were inoculated.
Looking at the room full of people as he tucked in his shirt after his shot, Brown deadpanned: “Where can a guy get dressed?”
Flu shots were the talk of the trip among American and Canadian passengers, until unusually high and rough waves were enough to make some passengers nauseous.
Demand for the shot is so high, that when a special clinic for Americans was offered at a government travel clinic in Vancouver, B.C., this Saturday, it was quickly booked up. Another has been scheduled for Nov. 6.
“It’s really opened a can of worms here,” said Michelle Stewart, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health Services in British Columbia. “People are wanting to come from California and Utah.”
Private travel clinics near the U.S. border also are offering the shot, as are some pharmacies on select days.
“The concern is people would make a trip without investigating first what options are available,” Stewart said.
“I don’t think the option of coming to British Columbia is going to be the panacea for the bigger problem” of U.S. supply, she added.
Shot supply is not a problem for passengers booking the trip to Victoria, said Darrell Bryan, executive vice president of the Victoria Clipper.
“We have been assured by Vancouver Island Vaccines that they have the inventory and have the ability to replenish that inventory,” he said.
Ruth Prohaska of Shoreline, who accompanied her mother, Esther Morical of Seattle, on Monday’s trip was frustrated at how hard it is this year to get a flu shot.
“I think it’s a scandal that we have to come here,” she said as she stood in line for her shot.
“Think of all those who can’t afford to come up here and get one.”
One of those is Verna Uhl, 68, who lives in a senior mobile home park near Mountlake Terrace High School.
Uhl said she recently paid $359 to repair a blown hose on her car, so there’s no trip to Canada for a flu shot, either by land or by sea.
“I’ve decided if I get the flu, I get the flu,” she said.
“If you drive up, you don’t know how much they’re going to cost, you hear so many different prices.”
Going on the Clipper is just too expensive, she said, adding, “Most people I know are in the same condition I am financially.”
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
Bud Brown of Lake Stevens gets his flu shot from nurse Shirley Connelly at the Victoria Clipper docks in Victoria, B.C. Brown was one of 169 passengers who rode the Clipper to Canada and received flu shots that they could not get in the United States.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
Bud Brown of Lake Stevens laughs with friend Ray Orme, from Covington, during the ride up to Victoria, B.C., on the Clipper. Both are employees of Freddie’s Club in Everett and made the trip together to get their flu shots.
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