About 100 million doses of swine flu vaccine are now available, which is close to the amount of seasonal flu vaccine used in a typical year. Some cities are reporting surpluses and releasing them to doctors’ offices and to pharmacy and supermarket clinics, telling them to vaccinate everyone — not just students and pregnant women, who have until now been the focus of vaccination drives.  “I got my shot yesterday,” Ms. Sebelius said, “and I urge others to do the same.”  (As someone who is healthy and born before 1957, she was previously among the last in line under guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)  Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the centers, said that the second wave of the flu was now ebbing and that there was “no way to know if there will be a third.”  Many Americans are acting as if the danger is over, but Dr. Frieden noted that swine flu had already killed five times as many children and young adults as seasonal flu does. Of the estimated 10,000 deaths as of Nov. 14, about 1,100 have been among children under 18.  How much seasonal flu will now emerge remains to be seen, Dr. Frieden said. For unknown reasons, new viruses tend to crowd out old ones. Australia and New Zealand had little seasonal flu during their July-August winter; in the United States, fewer samples of the three strains of seasonal flu have been found than is typical for mid-December.  Actions taken five years ago to head off avian flu left the country well prepared for this milder pandemic, the officials agreed, and Dr. Nicole Lurie, chief of preparedness and response for the Health and Human Services Department, called the outbreak this year “just a reminder of what an effective bioterrorist Mother Nature can be.”  Behind her, Secretary Sebelius coughed — correctly — into her sleeve.  A version of this article appears in print on December 18, 2009, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Assessment And Thanks As Flu Wave Ebbs in U.S. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The federal health secretary said it was time to “focus on the next phase” of the virus and urged all to get vaccinated.