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Coronavirus

Chaos at the Boulevard and Fanar Mall Vaccination Drive

It’s hard to tell from these videos if the vaccination drives were only for mall employees or open to the public but whatever the criteria was, it looks like it was total chaos.

There was also a video that showed a police officer aggressively shoving and hitting people waiting in line to get vaccinated. After the video went viral the MOI quickly released a statement saying they’ve summoned the involved officer for questioning and that it was an individual act and in no way reflects the police department’s mission which is to serve and protect the community.

Has anyone else noticed how active and reactionary the MOI Instagram account has become? Whenever there is an incident that goes viral they’re always on top of it. From all the government accounts I think the MOI and Traffic Department are my two favorites.

26 replies on “Chaos at the Boulevard and Fanar Mall Vaccination Drive”

Only when it gets viral is when these issues are addressed. I have personally seen and experienced inappropriate behavior more times than not towards expats by the authorities. Especially when it’s Asian expats.

My point was this behavior is very common and rarely any action is taken against it unless it becomes public.

Why is it so hard to organize such events? Just get those que organizer’s and set them up in a zig zag setup, so people stand in behind one another, similar to Mishref

This is what you get when there is uncertainty and lack of transparency. People develop mistrust in government and go into survival mode.

Actually in the Middle East, lack of transparency in government often results in higher vaccination rates and more trust in the government. Middle East countries that have higher levels of government transparency often have lower levels of trust in the government (as is the case in Kuwait)

There was a recent article that discussed the link between vaccination and dictatorship in the Middle East:

https://www.dw.com/en/middle-east-covid-vaccine-rollout-hesitancy/a-57227395

“In some countries, media is more tightly controlled — and so is the official messaging on vaccinations, explained Mahmoud Ghazayel, a Lebanese expert in open source verification. In March, surveys suggested 62% of residents of Saudi Arabia were willing to be vaccinated.

But in other countries like Iraq, where the majority of media outlets are funded by, or aligned with, opposing religious or political groups, locals don’t trust mainstream news. So they get their information elsewhere.

“People are turning not only to ‘alternative’ media and news websites but to groups on [messaging apps] WhatsApp or Telegram, or to Instagram, all of which are free to publish whatever they want, with no restrictions or verification,” Ghazayel told DW.”

I may be reading-challenged, but the article you linked to implies the exact opposite. In cases of less transparency, alternate media is used, and fuels mistrust and hesitancy.

I’d be curious to see three graphs that plot government transparency, government trust, and vaccination rates.

Interesting POV!

Do you know which vac they are taking? I heard that oxford is out of stock but also they cannot provide freezers for pfizer at these malls?

The mall vaccination drive is targeting the staff working at the mall’s. but as news spread other people go and wait in line to sneak in and get vaccinated.

What we see in the videos is a total lack of organization and preparation.

Making clear announcements of who will be getting the vaccinations, putting in steel separator barriers on the outside of the mall to minimize crowding, blocking off or closing access to a certain part of the mall, and controlling the entry to and exit from the mall through specified entrances, setting up long serpentine barriers just like those in Mishref with vetting stations at the end of them would have easily ensured that the chaos and madness people witnessed at Fanar and Boulevard could have been averted.

If it is mall employees only, how difficult is it to get lists from the business within the mall providing the name and civil id numbers of their employees?? Get the lists and provide them to the vetting stations. Your name and CID number match what they have on file then you move on to the vaccination stations. If not, proceed to exit the mall

how about some signs, in languages that non-arabs can read and understand?

i have never understood why kuwait hates signs, especially in different languages. half the problems occur because only one out of the ten expats that turned up can understand the required arabic. 1 out of 20 can actually read arabic.

if they could just put up signs in tagalog, tamil, malayalam, in addition to english and arabic, that would be good enough for 97% of the population.

You need a sign to tell you how to properly queue up and wait patiently in a line? WIthout getting aggressive and pushing. I’m sorry but you won’t blame Kuwait for this one. Go to Al-Muzaini in Mangaf and you will see what I mean. I watched 9 expats push and fight once trying to get on a bus at a stop on Cairo street, the bus was empty I don’t know why they were being so aggressive. I guess they are all desperate for the vaccine.

I agree with you, but maybe we do need picture signs which are universally understood, then there should be no excuses for misunderstanding. Even before covid the concept of queuing with certain groups of people was non existent. Did you ever experience the pointless stampedes at airport gates to board certain flights and then the same thing to get off once the plane had landed.

As for these two incidents, I’m not advocating violence or shouting insults as the appropriate method of crowd control in any form. These two situations should have been properly planned by the malls management beforehand and they should be held accountable. Didn’t the avenues mall manage to deal with exactly the same initiative successfully?

how about a sign to signal where the queue starts, what the queue is for, who is eligible for the vaccine, what documents are required, where to go to request information (telephone number, social media, website, information kiosque, etc)

do you think shouting at people and shoving them will solve the problem? not according to the footage. hell, if you really think force is the solution, at least get police in riot gear, not a couple of emotionally unstable dudes.

but you are totally right about people being desperate for vaccine.

Are none of you going to address the fact that women were screaming their effing lungs out in the first video because they’re being shoved around by swathes of men?

What is wrong with all of you?!

Wow, the insensitivity of people in this part of the world knows no bounds.

I was horrified when I heard their screams. But all of you are just focusing on the Asian man who got pushed, probably because you are all men!

Mark – you can call me annoying or whatever the F you want. I don’t care. I don’t think those women should have gone through what they went through.

No I meant maybe you thought my outburst was annoying.
I don’t care if anyone thinks it was, my jaw dropped on the floor and my eyes shot out of their sockets.

15 people commented before I did on this post but none of them mentioned the women being attacked. WHY?!

“none of them mentioned the women being attacked. WHY?!”

What the fuck are you on about? First video is 2 women screaming their heads off shoving the tables towards the people gettin vaxxed. Where exactly are you seeing women being attacked?

Considering I’m one of the people present in the 2nd video and happened to get shoved by several men and practically lost my voice yelling my lungs out, I can assure you that the attack indeed happened.

I heard you, my sister and I feel awful about what happened to you. If I was there, I would have protected you. Not that you need protection, but I would have helped!

Men don’t care about women’s safety. 15 people commented before me and none of them mentioned this.

Okay, so I just watched the second video. I saw basically everyone in the crowd, both men and women, being shoved by more people behind them on one side, and the “organizers” by the door on the other side. Everyone was being shoved and everyone was shoving. Guess what that’s what happens in big crowds all fighting to get in like that. What exactly were you expecting here? Because the women happened to scream the crowd was gonna magically disperse? What about the men being shoved around on the left side by the organizers? Oh wait you don’t give a shit because they were men so that’s ok. GTFO with that BS.

It was a total disaster in Zahra Complex as well, totally unorganized and unethical. The building management was smuggling in their friends and family, taking them directly to the vaccination center whereas the people who works in the complex didn’t get the vaccine after standing in que for more than 4 hours.

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