MP: Vaccination centre set up at Bhopal’s drive-in cinema site

A drive-in cinema in a hotel in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh will be the site of a vaccination centre amid a surge in coronavirus cases, officials said on Monday.

Cinemas and other such entertainment complexes are shut in the state under restrictions put in place to contain the Covid-19 outbreak.

The drive-in cinema is located in Hotel Ashoka Lake View, run by the Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation (MPSTDC), they added.

“The MPSTDC, the state health department and UNICEF have jointly planned the initiative. Two persons and a driver will be allowed inside in a vehicle after being registered for vaccination at the entrance. They will be administered the doses, kept in the drive-in cinema area for monitoring for 30 minutes and then allowed to proceed,” Hotel Ashoka Lake View’s senior manager KL Patel told PTI.

He said some 75 to 100 vehicles can be accommodated in the drive-in cinema area at a time, and there is space for vehicles to be placed six feet away from each other.

“Preparations are expected to be completed by April 30 and the vaccination programme at the drive-in cinema would start the next day, with people being given the doses from 6pm to 9pm. If 50 vehicles arrive in this 3-hour period, we expect to vaccinate some 100 people,” Patel informed.

Madhya Pradesh, as on Sunday, had a Covid-19 caseload of 4,99,304, including a tally of 80,736 in Bhopal.