Local Mount Pleasant hospitals opened the clinic on Jan. 22 for residents eligible to receive the first shots of the Covid-19 vaccine. But shortly after the drive-thru opened, the computer system that managed the logs crashed and caused 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 found out, I called Jerry and asked him if he would come help us,” Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie told CNN. “After looking at it, he said,‘ Here’s your problem. It’s backed up because you have a person who registers people. “Then he taught us how to do it right.”
With the help of a few additional volunteers, Walkowiak transformed the messy jam into smooth running, reducing the wait from 15 hours to just 15 minutes.
More than 1,000 people received the vaccine that day, Haynie said. When everyone gets their second dose back on February 12th, Walkowiak will be back to help you manage the drive-thru.
“At Chick-fil-A, we’re about to be the most concerned company in the world, and when Mayor Haynie asked us to come, we took a look at what their automatic transmission system was,” he said. Walkowiak on the WCBD news channel.
“We saw a little one in his driving system and we needed a little more people, so we gathered some of the wonderful Rotary volunteers and got off there and we were only able to streamline the registration part.”
More than 29 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States, according to data released Saturday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While the United States still has a long way to go before the pandemic ends, Haynie hopes the experience in her city will encourage others to get vaccinated and help with vaccination efforts.
“Jerry got a phone call and left everything because he knows that getting this vaccine changes the game,” Haynie said. “That’s the light at the end of the long Covid tunnel.”