Want to organise a COVID vaccination drive in your society? Here’s what you should know

Before the vaccination drive

Partnerships and approvals

• Approach the hospitals nearest to you with a request for organising a vaccine drive in your community. Check for availability of dates, vaccines, MOQs, and any arrangements to be made by the society or approvals to be obtained
• Payment of an advance to the hospital for the vaccinations booked
• Sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the hospital partner, mentioning vaccination rates and numbers
• Get the necessary approval as a PCVC from the District Medical and Health authorities
• Alternatively, the hospital partner manages the government approvals
• Organise a site visit and inspection by the health department officials, if needed
• Arrange for a training session for RWA members and volunteers, if needed

Arrangements to be made at the society

Inviting registrations and collecting payments

• Assess residents’ interest in getting vaccinated and estimate numbers based on age. This information is to be passed on to the hospital
• Make sure all interested residents register themselves on the CoWin app/website
• Collect payments in order to pay the advance amount to the hospital
• Allocate time slots based on floors or blocks. This can be managed based on the number of people to be vaccinated

Arranging amenities & infrastructure

• Identify a suitable, well-ventilated location for organising the vaccination drive. Apartments that have amenities such as clubhouse, tennis courts, gym etc can designate these areas. Other areas such as basements and car parks can also be used
• In all, you will need to have separate areas for setting up:

1. A registration counter with 1.5ft distance between desks
2. Pre and post vaccination waiting area with defined social distance and not more than 50 people at a time
3. Designated vaccination area
4. AEFI (Adverse events following immunisation) Room with two beds, crash cart (to manage/ stabilise any kind of immediate reaction observed post vaccination)

• Make arrangements for chairs, beds, oxygen concentrator and cylinder and first aid kit 
• Organise a team of volunteers to assist with the registration, crowd control, post vaccination verification etc
• Organise staff to sanitise the rooms between sessions
• An ambulance and medical staff – provided by the hospital
• Communicate to residents the time slots and location of the drive, as well as information about all the documents to be carried (Aadhaar card or other government-issued ID, phone etc.)
• If payment is to be made on-the-spot, mention the various modes accepted

On the vaccination day

“The most time-consuming task during the drive is not the vaccination itself, which takes a few seconds and is managed by hospital staff. CoWin registration takes up the most time, says Mr. Chandramohan, as not everybody understands its nuances or books slots in advance.

How PEBL City utilised MyGate to successfully vaccinate 2,000+ residents

Getting estimates

One month before the actual vaccination drive, the RWA conducted a test run using the Amenities Booking feature on the MyGate app. Says Mr. Chandramohan, “At that time the vaccine wasn’t available but we created free slots on the app so that we could know how many residents were interested.” They received around 2,000 bookings, helping them estimate that the approximate number of vaccinations to be procured. It also worked as a dry run so things could run smoothly on D-Day.

Booking

Amenities like the clubhouse, gym and badminton court were converted into vaccination centres. They were marked as paid amenities on the MyGate app. Time slots for each vaccination session were allocated and bookings were made available through the app.

Payments