COVID vaccination drive-thru turns to Chick-fil-A manager for help to keep the line moving

According to ABC13, the Mount Pleasant clinic opened on on January 22 for residents eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Shortly after the drive-thru opened, the computer registration system crashed, causing hundreds of people be stuck in line.

Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie told CNN that he asked Jerry Walkowiak, the manager of a nearby Chick-fil-A, to help out. "When I heard about it, I called Jerry and asked if he would come help us out. After he looked it over, he said, 'There's your problem right there. It's backed up because you have one person checking people in.' Then he showed us how to do it right."

Walkowiak, with the help of some volunteers reduced the hours-long wait to 15 minutes and facilitated vaccine distribution for over 1,000 people. Walkowiak said he will be back to help manage the drive-thru for the second dosage on February 12.

Walkowiak told WCBD, "At Chick-fil-A, we're about being the most caring company in the world, and when Mayor Haynie asked us to come over, we took a look at what was their drive-thru system. We saw a little hiccup in their drive-thru system, and we needed some more people, so we gathered some of the wonderful Rotary volunteers and went down there and just was able to expedite the registration part."

Haynie told CNN, "Jerry got a phone call and dropped everything because he knows getting this vaccine out is a game changer. This is what the light at the end of the long COVID tunnel looks like."