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There’s a popular perception that the swine flu pandemic is over, but health experts say that’s not true, and un-vaccinated people may be even more vulnerable to it now than they were in the fall.

"Our concern is based on what happened more than 50 years ago," said Dr Anne Schuchat, Director of the National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The H1N1 pandemic has tracked along with the next-to-last flu pandemic, the Asian Flu of 1957. Both began with a small first wave, then a big fall wave peaking in October, then the numbers dropped off through December. In January of 1958, the Asian Flu came back with a winter wave that sent flu-related deaths up to a late-February peak almost as high as the one in the fall.

Dr Schuchat emphasized the CDC is not predicting that will happen again, only that it could, and has in the past. It also could wait and return in the spring.

"Having as many people vaccinated as possible is our best course of action, even if we can’t read the tea leaves of the future," Schuchat said. "We don’t want to repeat the story from 1957."

If there is a winter wave of swine flu, it would be even worse for the unvaccinated, according to Texas Department of State Health Services epidemiologist Gene Mikeska.

The CDC estimates that more than a third of all Americans either have had the H1N1 flu or the shot, so they’re almost completely immune now. Any future wave would claim its victims from the remaining — and shrinking — pool of people still vulnerable to the virus.

"If you’re not immune," Mikeska said, "your chances of catching the flu are greater, because there are fewer people left for the virus to attack."

To head off that potential third wave of flu in Blanco County, the DSHS has been conducting additional shot clinics here...Johnson City in December, two in Blanco this month, and now back to Johnson City again.

Next week’s free clinic will be open to anyone who wants the vaccine, either by injection of nasal spray, at the First United Methodist Church in Johnson City on Thursday, Jan 28, from 10 to 7. There is no charge, no residency or identification requirement and no appointment is necessary.

Dorothy Dawson, the DSHS’ public health nurse responsible for Blanco County, reminded parents that children under 10 need two doses, a month or more apart.

"One dose only gives them about 2/3 protection," she explained, "because their immune systems aren’t yet mature enough to respond fully. It’s that second dose that completes their protection. This would be a good chance to give it to them."