Quebec’s new COVID-19 drive-thru clinic at the Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport is officially up and running.
“We’re targeting the family bubble, so it’s efficient,” explained Daniela Candido, director of logistics at CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. “When the evaluator is speaking and asking questions in the tent, you’re doing it to the whole group and not one at a time.”
About 15 tents are set up across the airport’s employee parking lot. Those with appointments are asked to drive up to one of the tents to undergo a brief evaluation before receiving their shot.
They then have to sit for 15 minutes while a team of medical professionals goes car-to-car checking in on how people are doing before they can drive off.
During the first week, the site is only taking a few hundred appointments.
Officials say they want to iron out the kinks before ramping up the numbers to 4,000 vaccinations every day.
ONGOING VACCINATION EFFORTS
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé announced the creation of the drive-thru earlier this month.
“People want to be vaccinated,” he said at the time. “What we’re offering…is an additional service…people can come by in cars with the family. So, it’s quite something because they don’t need to have a babysitter.”
Planning for the site started in mid-February. The hope is that these types of clinics will also make it easier for people with reduced mobility to get their vaccines.
Quebec is pushing hard to get as many people in the province vaccinated as quickly as possible.
Officials state they are 85,000 appointments away from having 75 per cent of the province’s adult population inoculated with at least their first shot.
They are hoping to reach this goal by June 24.
