Cape Town - GrandWest Casino has been given the go-ahead to open a vaccination site, and they will start walk-in vaccinations today.
Located in GrandWest’s Market Hall, adjacent to the Grand Arena, the site will commence vaccinations today, following approval from the provincial health department.
The site will be operational from 9am to 3pm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until the first week of October, with the aim of administering about 250 Pfizer vaccinations a day.
A portion of the daily vaccines will be reserved for GrandWest staff, with the remaining shots for the public.
GrandWest general manager Mervyn Naidoo said the site hoped to administer about 8 000 vaccines over the next six to seven weeks, and the need for the site to remain open will be assessed thereafter.
“We may be the first hospitality and leisure industry vaccination site to open in the province, but we hope we will soon be overtaken by many more. Our industry has been particularly hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, and if we don’t reach critical mass with the vaccination roll-out, thousands of jobs could be lost.
“We are grateful for the support of our regular casino customers through this difficult time, but our restaurants have suffered enormously, and many of our regular entertainers have been unable to work since the start of the pandemic, so we are willing to play any role we can for them to be able to work again,” said Naidoo.
Visitors can access the site from the front entrance to GrandWest, or from the back Welcome Centre at the Grand Arena entrance.
Provincial health department spokesperson Mark van der Heever said the vaccine offered great protection against severe illness and death, which was why the department was encouraging everyone to get vaccinated, to avoid a fourth wave.
“There is a very real risk for a fourth wave. The biggest mitigation will be to get as many people as possible to be fully vaccinated prior to a fourth wave. We have a window of four months to get everyone over the age of 18 years of age to register and present at the multiple vaccination points to be vaccinated.”