Bloomberg: New York, Los Angeles and Boston are setting up swine flu centers to administer vaccinations as part of a plan to slow the spread of the virus that U.S. health officials have said may infect half the nation’s population.

New York will offer free immunizations at elementary schools and distribute the vaccine through about 100 health clinics, according to plans released today by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office. Los Angeles will give out shots at its fair grounds, Boston is letting city employees leave work for two hours to get vaccinated and Chicago’s schools plan to track real-time attendance for the first time to identify hotspots, spokesmen for those municipalities said.

Cities nationwide are completing plans to distribute the H1N1 vaccine, which the U.S. will provide for free. The shots are being tested and will be available in mid-October, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Patients will still have to pay to have the vaccine administered unless states and cities agree to cover those costs, as New York has.

Fastest-Moving Pandemic

Swine flu has become the world’s fastest-moving influenza pandemic, sweeping across 177 countries in the four months since it was first identified, the CDC said. Lab tests have confirmed H1N1 in 2,185 deaths and more than 209,000 infections, though most infected patients aren’t tested, according to the Geneva- based World Health Organization.

H1N1 may infect 30 to 50 percent of the U.S. population, according to planning scenario released by outside advisers to the White House on Aug. 24.

The U.S. is already undergoing the highest flu rates for this time of year since the 1968 Hong Kong flu, said Joe Quimby, a CDC spokesman, in an Aug. 30 telephone interview. While the U.S. flu season normally runs from November to March, swine flu continued to circulate during the summer with outbreaks seen in at least 80 summer camps, the CDC said.

Distributing the Vaccine

The U.S. government is paying for shots, nasal sprays and related supplies. It’s up to states to decide how to distribute the vaccine and who should pay for the doctor visits, according to the CDC.

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New York, L.A., Boston Set Up Swine Flu Vaccination Centers