The New Mexico Department of Health partnered up with the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine to offer free flu shots for the public on Oct. 31.  

The event will be happening at a drive-thru clinic located at 3501 Arrowhead Drive. Flu shots will be available for everyone from six months and above from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. All attendees are required to wear a mask.  

 According to David Daniels, disease prevention program manager from the New Mexico Department of Health, there is usually one event like this one per year which is organized by them. Daniels said that this kind of event has been going on for at least 10 years. 

 Due to COVID-19 and the importance of public health, this year they organized three separate drive-thru clinics. The first one was on Oct. 17, another one Oct. 24 and the upcoming and last one on Oct. 31. The drive through clinics are usually held on closest Saturday to Halloween.  

 “We’re only going to do Boo to the Flu events for these dates that we had scheduled, but moving forward, we will have flu vaccines available at our public health office, so this is the one mass vaccination event for the year,” Daniels said.   

 The New Mexico Department of Health recommends that everyone gets their flu shot during these times specially since COVID-19 is going around. Free vaccines are available thanks to government funds.  

 “We realized that ss long as we can demonstrate what we are doing in the event of an emergency, we could get the community vaccinated for free, and that’s what Boo to the Flu turned into,” Daniels said.   

 In the event of a COVID-19 vaccine, the New Mexico Department of Health is more than ready to handle the distribution of said vaccine to the New Mexico community.  

 “We’re looking to have our hospital partners that know how to do these events help us do some of this,” Daniels said. “At the health department we do this already, with COVID testing, we have a similar process down so we could potentially vaccinate for COVID.”  

 Daniels mentioned that the events have been of great success this year. The program even ran out of shots to give during one of the clinics. The event held Oct. 17 gathered 1,064 people while the one on Oct. 24 had 1,800 attendees in total. Daniels encourages everyone who hasn’t gotten their flu shot to attend this Saturday.  

 In the spirit of Halloween, health care providers at the event will be dressed up in costumes. Everyone who attends is encouraged to wear a costume of their own, especially all children attending.