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Zurich to set up ‘vaccination village’ at main train station

Authorities in Zurich will set up a “vaccination village” at the HBF in November as part of the country’s vaccination offensive.

Published: 3 November 2021 17:28 CET

Zurich's Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station)

Zurich authorities will set up a 'vaccination village' at the HBF to encourage people to get the jab. Photo by Tomek Baginski on Unsplash

The Impfdorf will be in the main hall of Zurich central station.

In addition to providing information on the vaccine for those who may still be unsure about whether or not to get the jab, there will be medical staff on site who can administer vaccines without appointments.

The village will only offer vaccinations to those who have not been vaccinated yet, with people wanting booster shots told to go elsewhere.

UPDATED: How can I get my Covid booster shot in Switzerland?

The village, which Swiss authorities say will resemble a Christmas market, will include multi-lingual staff and a number of representatives from migration agencies.

Switzerland’s foreign population has a lower vaccination rate than that of the native born. With around 25 percent of the country’s residents foreign born, this at least in part accounts for the low vaccination rate.

“We want to prevent the hospitals and their staff from coming under pressure again soon and interventions having to be postponed,” said cantonal health boss Natalie Rickli when making the announcement on November 3rd.

Zurich’s vaccination rate is higher than the national average.

CHARTS: Which Swiss cantons have the highest vaccination rates?

In total, 66.4 percent of Zurich residents are vaccinated, compared to 63.8 percent on a nationwide basis. Only Vaud, Ticino and both Basel cantons have a higher vaccination rate.

Switzerland’s vaccination offensive will include a vaccination week from November 8th to 14th, where events will take place encouraging people to get the jab.

On November 12th and 13th, pharmacies will be open until midnight offering vaccinations.

More information about Zurich’s vaccination drive can be found here.

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Growth spurt: What Zurich needs to do to accommodate 2 million residents

At the end of 2023, over 1.6 million people lived in Zurich, Switzerland’s most populous canton.

But this number is far from static.

The population is continuing to grow — so much so, that it will reach the 2-million mark in the coming years, cantonal authorities said in a press release.

This means an increase of around 450,000 people within the next two decades — a 28-percent growth rate, which is “significantly higher than the Swiss average.”

The primary reason for this hike, accounting for 49 percent of the increase, is immigration, followed by births (44 percent) and, to a lesser degree (7 percent), people moving to Zurich from other Swiss regions

On one hand, this is good news because “it is evidence of the canton’s attractiveness and economic prosperity,” authorities pointed out.

On the other, however, this demographic evolution will create a number of new problems and exacerbate the already existing ones.

That is why “strategic decisions are needed on how to handle challenges facing various areas,” cantonal officials said.

‘Dealing with consequences’

With this ‘growth spurt,’ Zurich will experience many of the same challenges as Switzerland on the whole will, as demographers are expecting the country’s population to swell to 10 million (from the current 9 million) people in the coming years.

Just as the federal government has started to think about the best ways to prepare the country’s infrastructure for the growing numbers, Zurich’s authorities too will be “shaping this growth” and “dealing with its consequences.”

To achieve this goal, they have launched the ‘Growth 2050” project to begin in the summer, which will examine “which approach is most suitable for strategically addressing the challenges ahead,” according to the press release.

What exactly does this mean?

While the project’s findings will not be made public until 2027, authorities will have to ensure that Zurich’s infrastructure, such as housing, public transport, as well as school and healthcare systems, will not crumble under pressure, but be able to function optimally — from both the financial and practical perspectives — in the new context.

While all these areas are important, in Zurich’s case, housing appears to be a particular problem as more residents move into the canton.

With tens of thousands of foreign nationals having settled in Zurich in the past few years, for instance, affordable housing had become scarcer — a situation that has continued to deteriorate and is expected to grow worse as more residents continue to arrive in the future.

READ ALSO: Zurich hit by affordable housing shortage amid record-high immigration

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