Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has started a widespread campaign to administer COVID-19 vaccination to its people, including taxi and bus drivers, metro, and tram staff as well as their family members.
The programme is expected to cover about 30,000 staff including frontliners involved in combating COVID-19. An in-house vaccination centre has been set up for this purpose in cooperation with the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), making RTA the first government entity to have this sort of facility.
Nada Jasim, Director of Safety, Risk, Regulation and Planning, Strategy and Corporate Governance Sector, RTA, said: “RTA has charted out a comprehensive vaccination plan for all employees including setting up an in-house vaccination centre and preparing lists of interested employees to ensure the smooth flow of staff during vaccination. The plan also covers the provision of parking spaces for staff arriving for vaccinations and the operation of a shuttle bus from the RTA HQ and other locations to the vaccination centre.”
“RTA’s vaccination centre has 30 counters with the capacity to administer vaccines to 150 employees per hour i.e., about 1,200 to 1,500 employees per day.”
As of 8 February, about 22,002 employees, including front-end staff, metro and tram operators, and parking inspectors as well as their dependents, have been vaccinated.
“RTA is committed to safeguarding the health of employees and their families. We are also constantly working to ensure the safety of our customers, a commitment that was reflected in our efforts to make our facilities safe during the national disinfection programme. Precautionary measures continue to be in place at our facilities including physical distancing among employees, in addition to a full system for remote operations,” added Nada.