Aayusha Adhikari

Aayusha Adhikari at the Camden Centre after being vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine.

The fight against COVID-19 has prompted many locals of the Quad Cities to get vaccinated. With the opening of the new vaccination site in Milan, Illinois, many PV students and their families have gotten their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Rock Island County Health Department has been working with the Illinois National Guard to facilitate a six-day-a-week vaccination center at the Camden Centre located in Milan, Illinois. Residents can sign up for the vaccine through an online registration on the health department’s website and their facebook page.

After online registration, vaccine recipients were given a QR code that would be scanned by the National Guard to check in and out of the facility. The center has a check-in desk and rows of tables with health professionals administering vaccines. Medical professionals could even be seen inserting the serum into the syringe in the back of the room.

A number of PV students have gotten vaccinated in the month of March. Junior Aayusha Adhikari wanted to take the necessary precautions to fight the pandemic and received the Pfizer vaccine. “I decided to get vaccinated [and] I was really glad that I got the opportunity, and I think it’s so important to take any safety measures to flatten the curve,” she explained.

Senior Ani Pradeep found the process fairly easy and showed minor symptoms after the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. “It was very fast paced [because] they were trying not to have a large crowd in there, so it was amazingly efficient. I just felt a lot of pain in my arm and had a little headache but it dissipated the next day,” he said.

With summer break just around the corner, vaccinated PV students want to safely travel and protect themselves and their peers. Pradeep is traveling to India to visit his grandparents who he hasn’t seen in four years. “For their safety and mine I wanted to make sure that I was vaccinated. My parents and siblings have all gotten vaccinated as well,” he expressed.

After receiving the vaccination, recipients were told to stay in the facility for observational purposes and were self-timed for 15 minutes. The purpose of this process is to see if they would show any sign of symptoms. They also were given a vaccination card that includes their name, birth date and the date their vaccine was administered.

Many PV students like Adhikari and Pradeep are awaiting their second dose. They must sign up for another online appointment and return with their vaccination card to receive their final dose. The new vaccination site exemplifies flattening the curve locally and remaining hopeful for a transition back to normalcy.