“Vaxchella” sees success, over 4000 shots given
“Vaxchella,” the influenza-coronavirus joint vaccination event co-hosted by USC Pharmacies and Student Health, ended Friday after two weeks of operation. In a briefing Tuesday with the Daily Trojan, Chief Student Health Officer Dr. Sarah Van Orman called the event “very successful.”
“We had crowds every day,” Van Orman said. “We were able to accommodate everyone who showed up most days. I think there were a couple of days the first week where we did run out of vaccines, [but] we were able to accommodate people the next week.”
In total, 2,353 coronavirus vaccinations and 1,877 flu vaccinations were administered at Vaxchella, surpassing expectations as stated Oct. 11 of administering 1,000 to 2,000 flu shots and coronavirus boosters to students, faculty and staff. The flu vaccine numbers from the event are just shy of 20% of Student Health’s stated cumulative goal of administering 10,000 flu shots for the season.
Student Health will continue providing vaccinations at the McCarthy Quad Trojan Farmers’ Market, USC Village and Pappas Quad weekly pop-up sites, as well as via walk-in and appointments at campus clinics.
USC’s inaugural Sex Week also came to an end, with the final event, “LGBTQIA+ Dating for Beginners,” which took place this Tuesday. Van Orman said the student response to the event was “overwhelmingly positive,” and that Student Health plans to “continue supporting it on campus” in future years.
“What we heard from students was that they appreciated the opportunity to have spaces that were safe, inclusive, positive — to learn and ask their questions,” Van Orman said. “Our hope would be that in future years, [Sex Week] becomes even larger, and we have more campus offices and more student groups participating, now that we’ve had the first one.”
Last Wednesday’s Sexploration Tent event was especially popular among students. Rachel Lichtman, associate director of public communications at Student Health, staffed last Wednesday’s Sexploration Tent and estimated that 300 students in total attended the event. Sunday’s “Ask the Sexpert” Instagram live event, hosted by Erin Tillman, intimacy coordinator and executive director of the nonprofit Sex Positive Los Angeles, garnered 594 views at the time of publication.
Sex Week events have been hosted at other universities since at least 2002, when Eric Rubenstein and Jacqueline Farber, undergraduate students at Yale, hosted a series of faculty lectures on sex-related topics. Since then, Northwestern University, Brown University, University of Kentucky, Harvard University and others have hosted their own “sex weeks,” usually organized by students or student organizations. While Sex Week at USC was mostly student-run, it is also among the first of its kind to involve a university student health department.
Van Orman spoke on Student Health’s larger goals of preventing gender-based violence and advocating for reproductive health services, including sexually-transmitted infection screening.
“We believe firmly that these kinds of events help support those goals,” Van Orman said. “When there are spaces where people are able to have positive conversations about consent, about healthy sexuality, about conversations with partners, those really support good sexual health, which is really what we are focused on.”
88 total positive tests for coronavirus were reported to Student Health the week beginning Oct.16 — an uptick from the week before, but not necessarily reflecting increased transmission, due to absences during fall break.
“We’ve really just been holding steady, which reflects what we’re seeing in the community: no surges in [coronavirus], but continual transmission at low to moderate levels,” Van Orman said.
Influenza cases among the USC population remain “sporadic” with no indication of “increases or surges,” according to Van Orman. The trend is consistent with data from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, which on Oct. 21 reported that 3% of reported patient visits nationwide were due to respiratory illness — just above the baseline of 2.5%. Van Orman also noted a rise in respiratory syncytial virus, a common virus with cold-like symptoms, with related hospitalizations in the community, but not at Student Health.
Van Orman also announced the launch of Uwill, a teletherapy extension service made available to USC students Monday in partnership with USC Counseling and Mental Health Services. Uwill “provides a rapid path to therapy services,” according to the Student Health website, and is covered under the Student Health Fee. Students can access the service through MySHR.
“It’s just another avenue to provide immediate access to mental health services without having to wait,” Van Orman said.