Here at Burke-Hawthorne Hall on the UL campus, it's one stop shopping in the battle against Covid-19. Over here, students and faculty can register, they can be tested, they can get vaccinations, and after that, they can cash out.
UL is part of the Governor's "Shot for $100" campaign, so sure some students were motivated a bit by the dollars. But UL's reason for doing this is bigger picture, i.e. protecting its community, protecting a place so many call 'home'.
"When you think about family, when you think about your home, you think about the people you love," says UL Dean of Students Margarita Perez. "We want to take of the community we love. We love our students, we love our faculty and our staff, we want them to be safe and healthy and to get a vaccination."
The clinic opened for the first time Monday morning, and as of 3:30 p.m., approximately 75 people had come in for testing and another 25 received vaccinations. UL senior Henry Curtis got his first shot of the vaccine; he said his motivation was all about those close to him.
"I haven't got it yet, and I got people at home, and I don't want to get them sick, so that's why I got the vaccine," explains Curtis.
One of the key reasons cited as to why many residents have not been tested or, taken a step further, have not been vaccinated has been lack of accessiblity to a Covid-related facility. This on-campus clinic at UL most definitely solves that problem.
"We live here, we learn here, we have fun here, we engage here; and in order to do all those things we need to get our vaccination rates higher," concludes Perez. "We need to keep our community safe and we need to be able to do that in a very responsible way."
The UL Covid Clinic is located in the Burke-Hawthorne Hall Theater and is open Monday thru Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
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