Berlin introduces the best way to get the jab - a party

It's a Berlin experience

"It's a Berlin experience to get vaccinated at a party."

Yes, that's right. Berlin is throwing a party where you can get vaccinated. Actually, it's a series of parties, and while you wait for the jab, you get to chill and listen to good music.

(Photograph:AFP)

Dance Music + Vaccination + a possible headache

It's a classic Berlin scene: Sharply dressed individuals wait in line to get into a club around the corner.

Music thudding inside the venue, strict entry control of attendees, and the possibility of waking up with a headache the following morning are all familiar as well.

However, on a rainy evening in Alt-Treptow, East Berlin, it isn't just dancing music that draws the crowd — it's vaccines.

(Photograph:AFP)

Nightclubs put to use

In this week's events in Germany's capital, the clubbing scene will offer three vaccination parties accompanied by electronic music.

A Berlin nightclub called Arena has become one of the city's five biggest vaccination centres over the last year after, along with other similar venues, it had to shut down to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

(Photograph:AFP)

Slow inoculation rate

The Robert Koch Institute for disease control and prevention reports that Germany, which administered well over a million vaccinations a day at its peak, has now slowed drastically in its inoculation rate against the Coronavirus.

With a view to encouraging more people to receive the jab, Angela Merkel agreed with regional leaders on Tuesday to end free Covid tests starting October 11.

(Photograph:AFP)

Now, Long queues

Markus Nisch, the Red Cross vaccination centre manager at the Arena, conceived the idea to combine dance music and vaccinations. 

"We had relatively low expectations at the start," he says. 

"But the queue goes all the way down there," he adds, pointing to dozens of social-distancing people waiting in line.

(Photograph:AFP)

Some well-known DJs

The Arena club has a very limited dance scene with more of a high school disco feel. Some of the well-known acts from Berlin's underground, some well-known DJs work away on a set of turntables, as patients just had their vaccines sat spaced out on chairs under strobing lights.

Some are wearing their best party attire, others are wearing their regular clothes.

(Photograph:AFP)

Social media helped spread the news

Social media helped spread the message. "I found it on Instagram, people were posting it widely," says Olga Kapuskina, 27, who recently moved to the city.

According to the Berlin ministry of health, about 420 people were immunised against the coronavirus on Monday at the Arena centre. 

(Photograph:AFP)