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UF Student Health Care Center administers free flu shots

Flu shots

The UF Student Health Care Center helped fight flu season by offering free flu shots to students, faculty members and staff Wednesday afternoon.

A line snaked out of the white and blue striped tent that was set up in front of the infirmary to administer the shots from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. With flu season picking  up, many took advantage of the resource.

“They have a pretty good system here,” said Arun Lakshminarayanan, an industrial engineering graduate student at UF. “I can’t complain. You have some resources that the university gives you, and this is something you wouldn’t necessarily think of.”

Lakshminarayanan works 40 hours per week in addition to graduate school, and he said waiting in line for 15 minutes was barely an inconvenience considering the time he could have lost by contracting the flu had he not taken necessary precautions.

“In India I used to get it almost once a year,” he said. “Getting the flu puts you down for three days, but the laziness puts you down for ten, and before you know it, you’ve lost your schedule for a month.”

Student Health Care Center Marketing Coordinator Catherine Seeman said it is not too late to get the flu shot. It does, however, take about two weeks for your body to build up antibodies after getting the shot, so if you decide to get the shot in the middle of flu season, there's a good chance you can still contract the flu.

"If  you wait until the thick of flu season, and you're around people that are sick, it's very possible that you can contract the virus before the flu shot can take effect. So that's why we're pushing people to get their shot if they haven't already."

As a senior nursing student, Katie Murphy is required to get a flu shot yearly. She is a proponent of getting the flu shot, and urges her fellow students to take advantage of flu shots sooner rather than later.

“Everyone should go get the flu shot. It’s really important to prevent it. I mean why as a student put yourself at risk when you have so much other stuff to do?”

Jane Schwed contributed audio reporting.

Laura is a reporter who can be contacted by calling 352-392-6397 or emailing news@wuft.org.