Front: County Health Officer Kevin Thomas watches cars enter Kindle Autoplaza for drive-thru flu shots Sunday, Oct. 26. Left: Cars line up in service area and drivers and passengers get flu shots. Photos by Al Campbell

COURT HOUSE -- An average 500 flu shots per hour were administered at the first of two county-sponsored drive-thru flu shot clinics Sunday, Oct. 26 at Kindle Autoplaza, Stone Harbor Boulevard.

"We have this down to a science," said County Health Officer Kevin Thomas, on Bayberry Drive as he watched the dual line of cars proceding into the service bays of the car dealer.

The speedy clinic was being aided by volunteers, including some from Richard Stockton College and Cumberland County College.

Thomas said a total of 7,000 flu shots are expected to be given this year in both Sunday clinics.

In addition to the main distribution of shots, the county will also give some flu vaccine to Woodbine Developmental Center, Cape Regional Medical Center and Volunteers in Medicine of Cape May County.

For the first time, because few residents of Woodbine, Wildwood or Whitesboro went to the drive-thru clinic, Thomas said the county hatched the "Vote and Vax" idea.

To date, the county's Family and children clinic at the Health Department has given flu shots to 180 children and 300 adults, said Thomas.

Voters in Woodbine, Wildwood and Martin Luther King Recreation Center, Whitesboro, will be afforded the opportunity to get a free flu shot at the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

"Cape May County is the only one in the state taking part in this program," said Thomas of the nationwide initiative to inoculate residents against the flu.

A second drive-thru clinic will be held at Kindle Autoplaza on Sunday, Nov. 16.