A pop-up clinic set up by the Metropolitan Health District of the city of San Antonio at its international airport has become a huge success in the efforts of the authorities to make travelers safe from COVID-19.
According to authorities, more than 100 travellers a day, using the international airport, have been getting their coronavirus vaccinations at the pop-up clinic.
According to Metro Health officials, COVID-19 shots are being offered in the baggage claim area.
Launched on June 29, the clinic is catering to travelers as well as people working at the airport, such as staff and vendors, according to Dr. Anita Kurian, assistant director of Metro Health’s communicable disease division.
“Travelers are at increased risk for exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,” Kurian said in an interview to a television channel.
“The COVID-19 vaccination pop-up events at the airport are to accommodate airport travelers in general and primarily to ensure that travelers coming into our community are vaccinated to prevent the spreading of the virus to others,” she added.
The broader target of the project is to make vaccine shots easily and conveniently available to people.
The pop-up clinic is scheduled to run till July 18 and operates from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. It has had 6 events so far for vaccinations and much more vaccinations have been done at these events than in the pop up clinics in the community, Kurian said.
There are growing concerns about the Delta variant of the coronavirus which is believed to be much more contagious than the existing three variants and therefore it is important that “we reach everyone,” Kurian said.
According to Metro Health, since the start of the pandemic, over 228,000 people in Bexar County have been infected with Covid-19 while over 3,500 of them have died.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has so far given emergency use authorization to administer COVID-19 vaccine shots from 3 makers — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — with the first two requiring a double dose at an interval of several weeks while the last one needing just one dose to provides full protection two weeks later.
The vaccines at the pop-up clinic are being administered free of charge to anyone 12 years and older.
