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Arsenal have arranged a mass vaccination clinic at the Emirates from Friday, June 25th - Monday, June 28th. As part of the clinic, the club is offering free stadium tours to anybody who gets vaccinated. The club is aiming to administer 10,000 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on both an appointment and walk-up basis.
The clinic is the latest in coronavirus aid efforts coordinated by the club, the entirety of which are listed on the Premier League website. The players have also gotten involved. Last spring, former Gunner Shkodran Mustafi donated 16,000 meals to the Islington community. Thomas Partey donated masks to his homeland Ghana. And while I can’t think of any other efforts from the players off the top of my head, I’m confident that I’m forgetting / missing something.
It’s great to see the club and the players staying involved in community service and public health efforts as we continue to combat COVID-19 and work towards returning to a more normal life. It’s easy to get disillusioned with the disconnect between the money in professional sports and the needs of communities around the world and some of the ethically dubious relationships that come along with sports as a business (spoiler: I may have a post coming in the next week or two on a particular instance of this).
But this is an unqualified Good Thing coming from sports, and our club in particular, and I’m very here for it.
If you’re in / around Islington and haven’t yet been vaccinated, please consider going to the clinic at the Emirates later this week. If you’re elsewhere in the world, please get vaccinated when it is your turn. We’re in this together, and it’s going to take all of us!