Vaccine Centres Come to Campus

Imperial College will be hosting pop-up vaccination centres across its campus from the beginning of the autumn term and will continue to encourage students to get their first and second jabs as soon as they can, a College spokesperson has confirmed.

Vaccines will be supplied by the NHS and will be free to all home and international students.

Students getting either dose of the vaccine will be entitled to a small reward of campus food and drink vouchers, although the exact details of these have not yet been finalised. These rewards will be akin to the experience of “when you give blood”, and may come in the form of tea, coffee and snacks handed out directly to those receiving their jab. The College is working closely with Imperial College Union (ICU) to provide these incentives.

The decision for these pop-up vaccination centres to go ahead comes as a result of deliberation within the College’s COVID Operations Group (COG), headed by Director of Academic Services Richard Martin.

Felix approached the College to ask about a Uni of Sussex-style incentive scheme where 10 double-jabbed students are chosen at random to win £5000 cash, however the COG has opted for the pop-up vaccine centres instead.

When approached for comment, ICU said the idea behind the small incentives was to “encourage any students or staff, who may be otherwise indifferent to having the vaccine, to get vaccinated”. They also highlighted that offering anything more substantial as a reward would be unfair on those who have already received both doses of the vaccine.

Both the College and the Union highlighted the strong priority to get as many students jabbed as possible, and that they strongly encourage all students to do so.

Correction: This article may be seen as leading the reader to believe that the College is providing the vaccine pop-up tents. The tents are in fact being provided by local council authorities.