City Briefs

Flu shot shortage

The influenza vaccine will now be allocated only to "high risk" groups, including senior citizens over the age of 65, children under 23 months, those with chronic medical conditions, and public health workers in direct contact with the virus.

Shares of the vaccine are allocated by the federal government, which plans to distribute 22.4 million doses.

All Massachusetts health-care providers must now report their flu shot supplies to the state, which will then report state supplies to the federal government. The DPH expects to know how many federal shares the state will receive in the next few days.

About 40 percent of Massachusetts flu vaccines are given out by the state, while the majority is distributed by private parties. Restriction of private vaccine distribution, while unlikely, is a possibility should the situation worsen.

800 to 1,000 people die of influenza each year in Massachusetts, according to the Associated Press. Only about 40 percent are immunized each year out of the states' two million "high risk" residents.

Somerville testing raises drop-out issue

The Somerville Journal reported that almost a third of the students (32 percent) who should be juniors this year were no longer in the school at MCAS testing time last spring.

The school district cited reasons other than dropping out for the absence of students' test scores, but the attrition numbers for Somerville are more than twice that of the state average, which is 15 percent.

"Somerville's holding power [over students], like holding power in many urban districts, continues to be extremely weak," said Anne Wheelock, a research associate at Boston College.

MCAS testing is considered a shaky measurement of drop-out rates, however. The pass rates of the test stayed consistent this year, with 24 percent of students receiving failing grades in both math and English.