By Agnieszka Gryz
Barbora Chaloupková
Claudiu Pop
Ester Ziffová

Fast food-style Covid jabs are now being served at Prague Central Station, offered to both Czech citizens and foreigners, in an attempt to reverse the declining vaccination trend.

With roughly 50 000 people getting their jab every day, it is only half of what the country saw at the turn of June and July, the Czech Ministry of Health reports.

“We need to focus on those who are willing to get vaccinated, but haven’t registered,” the Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch told iRozhlas.cz on July 24. Vojtěch stressed the importance of setting up mobile stations where people could get a shot without prior registration.

One such pop-up site opened up at Prague Central Station in mid-July. The process is easy: all the citizens have to do is present their ID card and health insurance. For those holding foreign passports, a single jab of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine costs 579 CZK (22 EUR).

“My wife is not a citizen, we came from Ukraine. It is easier to get vaccinated here than to register in a central system,” says 35-year-old Andrii Harhat, who awaits her while tending to their two small children.

With some people speaking little or no Czech, health clerks sometimes resort to hand gestures to get their message through. “Which hand do you use to write: left or right?” a female official asks, raising her own hand and simulating writing.

“We started with almost six hundred people a day, now we are around four hundred,” says a young man helping at the site. The spokesperson of Bulovka Hospital which runs the center, says that people usually wait up to fifteen minutes. “There's always a line,” confirms a clerk from a nearby convenience store.

While some people describe vaccination at the train station as bizarre, others are thankful for the opportunity. 21-year-old Alžběta came here against her mother’s will. “I think our generation is quite okay with being vaccinated — or, at least, our social bubble,” says Alžběta.

Some get a jab despite their own doubts. “I am young and my immunity is strong, I don't think I need the vaccine,” says Sheriff, a Ghanaian student of rural development. “But I think everyone should be vaccinated. Maybe your relative or your friend is not that strong. To protect that friend, you must be vaccinated.”