Health department immunization educator Judy Strait-Jones said that there now is enough vaccine for anyone who wants the shot to get one. She said people who want the free shot should get a referral from their doctor and go to a Department of Health clinic to receive it.

Officials worry that people will think that the flu season is already over since it got an early start in Hawai'i this year. But last year, the peak of the number of suspected flu cases came at the end of February and in some years, it has shot up to a high in March, statistics show.

For more information on the shots, people may call the 211 telephone referral service. For more information on flu season and flu shots, go to www.state.hi.us/doh or vaxhawaii.com

Strait-Jones said the state loosened the restrictions on the shots after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released more vaccine. People at a higher risk for serious reactions to the flu — pregnant women, the very young, the elderly, those with chronic illnesses such as asthma or diabetes — were targeted earlier.

"We hope that most of the people who are at high risk already got their shots," Strait-Jones said.

The flu is being taken more seriously this year because the season got going earlier than normal and has been linked to the deaths of 129 children on the Mainland as of last week.

In Hawai'i, the number of cases of flu and influenza-like illnesses reported by doctors’ offices shot up to more than 8 percent of all visits in the last week of December through the second week of January, according to the Health Department’s disease investigation branch. The disease trackers saw the percentage of people reporting related illnesses steadily decline since then.

During the peak of a typical flu season 8 to10 percent of patients visiting doctors have the flu. There have been no signs that this year’s illness is more severe than previous years, officials said.