Berlin – In Berlin, a “vaccination bus” has been driving through the city since October 1st. On Friday morning he started his first stop in front of the Lichtenberg Dong-Xuan-Center and attracted the first people willing to be vaccinated. Three more buses will be added in October. They are supposed to go to places and people that were previously excluded from the vaccination campaign.
Two weeks ago it was still a pink sightseeing vehicle, now the bus is painted red and white and bears the inscription “Berliner Impfbus / Berlin Vaccination Bus” that can be read from afar. In front of the door, those willing to vaccinate receive a clipboard with the necessary documents and fill it out, only then do they enter the bus at the front of the driver’s cab, almost as if they were buying a ticket. Then it goes either to the lower or the upper vaccination booth of the double decker. At the top you have to be careful not to hit your head. Otherwise the space is optimally used, you can even keep the minimum distance. When it rains, the documents should be filled out in the double-decker on bus seats selected with a minimum distance, so the bus is ready for use even in bad weather.
Because the vaccination centers are closing, other offers are now needed
In front of the Dong-Xuan-Center, an Asian wholesale market in Lichtenberg, a small line forms in the parking lot three quarters of an hour before the start of the campaign. He stays here until 11.30 a.m., then it goes to the Mevlana Mosque in Kreuzberg, where the bus stops until 6 p.m. The young Michel Walaszewski from Marzahn is also among those waiting in Lichtenberg. He took the tram for 20 minutes to pick up his second vaccination with Moderna: “My girlfriend saw the vaccination bus this morning and wrote to me. The vaccination center at Ikea has now closed, because I had my first vaccination, also with Moderna. Now I had to look for something else, so the bus comes in handy. “
DRK
The vaccination bus from the inside.
District Mayor Michael Grunst (Die Linke) is also there and emphasizes his joy about the mobile offer, especially in the east of the city. Here, the “doctor density is lower”, and since the vaccination centers are now largely closed, you have to rely on other offers. Now that the vaccination quota forecast by the RKI has roughly been reached in Berlin, you are faced with “the heaviest ten percent of the vaccination,” says the mayor.
Where does the bus stop next?
This is exactly where the buses come into play. According to project manager Ricarda Neumann from the German Red Cross (DRK), they do not have a fixed schedule that would be planned for several weeks. Neumann: “We now want to go where people have not yet been vaccinated. Among other things, we have several appointments at the Berliner Tafel. ”In return, people want to be spontaneous and leave places where there are few people willing to be vaccinated and instead try elsewhere. Each bus has 120 doses of the Moderna vaccine with them, so a total of 480 vaccinations can be carried out daily in all four buses. The bus stops are announced on wirhelfenberlin.de.
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