KOLKATA: More than 200 members of the Andhra Association Calcutta went for their vaccination to a private hospital in the city, within a two-hour time slot that was booked especially for the community members by the association.
Most of those who went for their jabs were senior citizens, who were hesitating to go to vaccination centres because they feared long queues and crowd.
However, since Tuesday’s time slot was exclusive, seniors were happy.
Many young members of the community too went to the camp to receive their jabs.
Lakshmi Rao and husband VV Rao are an elderly couple who have stayed indoors mostly for the past 15 months.
They were glad that the Association had taken this initiative.
“The afternoon slot was convenient too since we could go in leisurely after lunch,” Lakshmi said.
Maruvada Vijayalakshmi (70) too was extremely happy at the initiative.
“Apart from old age related issues, many of us have so many co-morbidities.
But since this was a fast track camp, we could take the vaccine,” she said.
The Association even offered to ferry the seniors.
“We are extremely happy at the response.
We will hold another camp soon after we collate details of how many more people within the community are left to take the jab and whether they want us to book another slot like this for them,” said president of the Association, Srinivas Vedula.
There were many seniors who were initially hesitant but after reading up about the side effects and counselling, they agreed to take their jabs.