It may be too late in Lawrence to be vaccinated against the flu.

Despite earlier assurances, the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department said Tuesday it wouldn’t be getting an expected shipment of 600 vaccination doses today.

Barbara Schnitker, the department’s director of nursing, said she was told the order — the bulk of 700 doses the county expected to receive this week — had been canceled.

“We’re working on our options,” Schnitker said.

The department has been out of vaccine since Monday morning.

“I called every (vaccine) distributor that we are aware of in the country this morning, and it’s pretty bleak,” she said. “There is not a supply.”

The shortage comes as absenteeism, possibly from the flu, began increasing this week in Lawrence public schools and many businesses.

There were 200 students absent Monday from South Junior High School, said Julie Boyle, district spokeswoman. An additional 100 were absent from Southwest Junior High School.

There has been no marked increase in absenteeism among the school district’s staff, Boyle said.

The Health Department’s inability to provide vaccine comes on the heels of private pharmacies running out of most of their supply last week.

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One pharmacy, at Hy-Vee’s Sixth Street and Monterey Way location, has a nasal mist to deliver the vaccine at $50 a dose. Schnitker said the Health Department had not considered using the mist.

“We have been so busy with the vaccine, we haven’t entertained that,” she said. “We may have to.”

The relative expense makes that option troublesome, she said. Regular vaccinations are $15 each.

“We obviously couldn’t purchase a lot and not be reimbursed” by the vaccine recipients, she said.

Schnitker said she hoped the department would receive “small pockets” of the remaining vaccine it had ordered.

“We have no reason to believe it won’t happen,” she said, echoing a statement she had made Monday about the larger order.

The unprecedented demand has been triggered by an unusually early and intense flu season. Flu has been reported coast to coast, and at least 13 states, mostly in the West, have already reported widespread cases. Texas and Colorado have been hit hardest. The deaths of at least six children in Colorado have triggered particular alarm.

The emergency room at Lawrence Memorial Hospital has been seeing from 10 to 15 flu patients per day for the past three weeks, officials said. Most had not had the flu shot, they said.