Stop the Spread of Whoping Cough, Get Vaccinated
Whooping cough is so bad that vaccines are being offered free of charge or highly discounted in Bay Area counties.
California is reporting a whooping cough outbreak to be an epidemic. There are four times more cases this year than last year. For the month of June there were approximately 900 cases reported as compared to around 200 last year. So far, five infants have died as compared to none last year.
Public Health officials believe people are not officially diagnosed with whooping cough because they do not go to the doctor. Therefore, it spreads from mother to child unknowingly.
Health officials are advising all adults and children to get vaccinated in order to better control the epidemic. Adults who have regular contact with infants and small children, such as preschool and kindergarten teachers, nurses, etc. should be vaccinated in order not to spread any germs to these young children.
Whooping cough derived its name from the horrible sounds that come forth when children have this ailment. They seem to gasp for air between their violent coughing. Whooping cough used to be called pertussis. It is a severe infection of the respiratory system and is very dangerous to babies and newborns. To most others it is just a temporary setback.
The symptoms of whooping cough are symptoms similar to a cold that progresses to very bad coughing that continues for weeks. Whooping cough is infectious for about three weeks. People should get antibiotics as soon as possible to reduce the infection time to just five days.
To avoid all the unpleasantness of whooping cough, make an appointment to get your free vaccine or very discounted vaccine as soon as possible. 
Ok, but where do you actually go? This is the issue. Lat Thursday I called the city of Palo Alto about this – they said there’s no such program. I called Target, Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart – they usually offer flu vaccines and the like. They’re not carrying any of the vaccine. I’m lucky enough to have health insurance, so I called my HMO. They said, we don’t vaccinate adults against whooping cough generally, and by the way, even if we would do, it’s not covered, so it would cost $125. And I’m a motivated person, who took the effort to make 6 calls. Most people won’t try that hard. And most folks don’t have the cash – even if their doctor would give it to them. So frankly, I think battling this situation is pretty hopeless.
Tdap is a live virus vaccine with a shedding period up to 3 weeks so ironically the recently vaccinated has the potential of passing on the virus to those unvaccinated medically containdicated or otherwise.