A total of 640 residents of Mohali district took advantage of a new style of mass vaccination event on Wednesday to get immunized against the COVID-19 while sitting in the comfort of their own vehicles.
Mohali’s, in fact, Punjab’s first-ever drive-through vaccination, started from Monday, is being held at the two locations — at District Sports Complex near Sohana gurdwara on Airport Road in Sector 78, and at Piccadilia The Theatre Cafe in Mullanpur, New Chandigarh.
“The Drive Through COVID Vaccination received an overwhelming response. On the opening day, 640 take jabs in cars — including 250 in Mullanpur and 390 at Mohali,” Mohali Deputy Commissioner Girish Dayalan told The Pioneer. The Mohali District administration has set up two Drive-Through Vaccination Centres to facilitate maximum COVID-19 vaccination.
“As of now ,the only safeguard against the deadly coronavirus is vaccination. We are trying our best to reach out to public for vaccination; the vaccination at all district and sub-divisional hospitals has been supplemented by on-site vaccination for bigger organizations as well as outreach camps to cover remote pockets or far-flung areas,” he said.
The district police are also providing free ‘to and fro’ cab service to the senior citizens for the vaccination site, he said. “We realized that the idea of waiting in hospital for vaccination is overwhelming for some fearing exposure to premises supposedly having a greater load of virus. So, for those who don’t want to wait onsite but prefer to get vaccinated in the comfort of their cars, we have opened up the Drive-Through Vaccination Centres,” said Dayalan.
Making an appeal to get vaccinated as soon as possible in order to safeguard themselves and others, the Deputy Commissioner informed that at both these centres, vaccination is open for age group 45-plus, frontline workers and healthcare workers. The vaccination timing is from 10 am to 4 pm. Moreover, no pre-registration is required to avail the facility at Drive-Through Centres.
Giving a word of advice, he suggested that for faster movement, the details including name, date of birth or age, mobile number and an ID card should be handy. “After the vaccination in the car, the vaccinated person will have to wait in his car in the ear-marked parking area for the stipulated observation time and would just require honk to avail medical assistance, if required,” he said.
ON-SITE VACCINATION FOR CONSTRUCTION WORKERS
To ensure coverage of all construction workers, above 18 years, for vaccination, Mohali District Administration has offered the facility of on-site vaccination. All that one needs to do is to provide the details of location and of workers to be vaccinated at the given WhatsApp number. “For vaccination of construction workers (18-plus), any builder or site operator etc, where construction activity is going on, WhatsApp the details of site location, number of workers to be vaccinated, and the details of contact person on 97793-42255…Team will visit and vaccinate on-site,” said Mohali Deputy Commissioner Girish Dayalan.
