Students snaked out the Stepan Center Thursday morning to receive their bivalent booster shots.
The line for the clinic, which was hosted by University Health Services (UHS), went all the way to the snow-covered sidewalks. In fact, when the clinic opened at 10 a.m., students were already lined up to get their COVID-19 booster shots.
Inside the building, a sign was set up with instructions for people with and without their vaccine card on how to check in. A mask was required to proceed into the building for the shot.
Bethel Aninyei, a graduate engineering student, was one of the people waiting in the line outside for their booster shot.
When asked why she came to the clinic, Aninyei said it was because the shot will be mandatory for the upcoming school year, as announced by the University last November. She said she probably wouldn’t have come to the clinic if it wasn’t, since she had already received the first booster.
Going to the University-run clinic had two main advantages for sophomore Anna McCartan. One was the clinic’s convenient location, and the other was that she would not need to worry about submitting information through her UHS portal.
“Mostly, it’s really nice just walking a couple minutes from my dorm and not really having to worry about submitting it separately on the portal, like automatic uploads,” McCartan said.
McCartan said she caught COVID for the first time this fall.
"I think since I had gotten the disease so recently, I probably would have waited longer, because I think I still have some antibodies from having it. So, it probably would be more effective later, but since they’re requiring it, I think I would sign up now,” McCartan said.
The convenience of going to the University-run clinic was also expressed by junior Chris Barile.
“It’s the closest thing, and also they upload your information right to your portal,” he said.
Barile said he probably would not have gotten the bivalent booster if it was not required because he is already boosted.
Diana Taylor, a nurse at the clinic, said that the bivalent booster is different from the earlier monovalent booster because it protects against more strains of Covid-19.
“This one has the Delta, the Omicron and the BA.5. So, it's a totally different strain of what those first boosters came out,” she said. “The bivalent means more than one, so there’s two new things they’ve added onto there, so the booster you had is not the same as this.”
Contact Colleen at cfarre23@nd.edu.
