Chick-fil-A director saves COVID-19 drive-thru vaccination clinic in South Carolina after traffic resumes

MOUNT PLEASANT, South Carolina – When a drive-thru coronavirus vaccination clinic in South Carolina was backed up, leaving people waiting for hours, the town’s mayor decided to hire a professional to get help. ‘help: a Chick-fil-A manager.

Local Mount Pleasant hospitals opened the clinic on January 22 for residents eligible to receive the first injections of the Covid-19 vaccine. But shortly after the drive-thru opened, the computerized records management system was shut down, causing hundreds of people to wait in heavy traffic.

That’s when Jerry Walkowiak, the manager of a nearby Chick-fil-A, stepped in to save the day.

“When I heard about it, I called Jerry and asked if he wanted to help us,” Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie told CNN. “After examining it, he said, ‘There’s your problem there. It’s saved because you have one person who is saving people. “Then he showed us how to do it right.”

With the help of a few more volunteers, Walkowiak turned the messy traffic jam into a smooth operation, reducing wait hours to just 15 minutes.

More than 1,000 people received the vaccine that day, Haynie said. When everyone returns for their second dose on February 12, Walkowiak will be back to help manage the drive-thru.

“At Chick-fil-A, we’re about to be the most caring company in the world, and when Mayor Haynie asked us to come over, we took a look at their drive-thru system,” he said. Walkowiak told the WCBD news station. .

“We saw a little glitch in their drive-thru system, and we needed more people, so we got some of the wonderful Rotary volunteers together and went over there and just got to speed up the game. ‘recording.

More than 29 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States, according to data released Saturday by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the United States still has a long way to go before the pandemic is over, Haynie hopes her town’s experience will encourage others to get vaccinated and participate in vaccination efforts.

“Jerry got a phone call and gave it all up because he knows the release of this vaccine is a game-changer,” Haynie said. “This is what the light looks like at the end of the long Covid tunnel.”