Orange County Register

Wash your hands often! Sneeze and cough into your elbow! Stay home if you’re sick! And …please…get the vaccine…which… well, which hardly anyone can get just now.

Last month, the global public relations firm Edelman won a $7.2 million PR contract from the state of California to mount a sweeping Eureka-to-San Diego swine flu campaign, educating folks on the latest flu wisdom and urging them to get vaccinated. The money comes from the federal government.

But that’s something of a pretty pickle right now. As our colleague Courtney Perkes points out in a recent story, the California Department of Public Health has distributed just 5 million doses of swine flu vaccine as of the holiday - in a state of almost 37 million people. (That’s enough for just for 13.4 percent of the sneezing, coughing citizenry.)

OC has fared slightly better, receiving 437,443 doses (enough for 13.7 percent of the sneezing, coughing citizenry).

All the more need for education!

The state sought bids from “qualified firms that can provide full-service advertising and public relations (PR) services in order to award a single contract to conduct a statewide paid media and PR campaign,” says its request for proposals (which makes for interesting reading and can be found here). ”The successful proposer will create and implement an expedited, innovative, campaign to raise and maintain public awareness within California’s diverse population about the H1N1 virus. The campaign goal is to educate Californians about preventative measures along with accurate vaccination information.” (Which, at this point, is that most of you can’t have one yet.)

“There are concerns that without an aggressive, effective effort to educate Californians about the actions that they can take to protect themselves from the H1N1 flu, the virus will continue to spread, causing sick patients and the “worried well” to overwhelm doctors’ offices, clinics and hospital emergency rooms. Public health officials will rely on CDPH to help educate Californians about the prevention and spread of the virus, the H1N1 vaccine and the time required to vaccinate a substantial portion of the state’s population. Public education communications must also address the concerns of those who are reluctant to get vaccinated because of their concerns about vaccine safety.”

The contract was awarded one month ago, so you haven’t seen any of Edelman’s work yet. Which, we suppose, is just about right, consideirng that there’s almost no vaccine yet. And, to be fair, the contract runs into next year, when vaccine will (hopefully) be in plentiful supply.

We’ll share Edleman’s contract when we get a copy of it from the state.

Sobering statistic: The most recent figures show 6,069 cases of swine flu reported in California, with 318 deaths.

 Take your vitamins. Sneeze and cough into your elbow. And don’t kiss your pig.

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