12:56 PDT 6/6/2021
by
Bryn Sandberg
Just over half of his crew got the shot over the weekend.
Tyler Perry, who got his COVID-19 vaccine on TV in January in an effort to instill confidence in it, is now helping his production crew get the chance.
Over the weekend, the film and television mogul set up a vaccination site at its Tyler Perry Studios production facility in Atlanta, Georgia. He covered the logical costs of setting up the site and worked with the nearby Grady Hospital to staff the event.
The vaccines were open to anyone in the studio who wanted one and had not yet received one. This included his entire crew, along with their family and friends. It was not mandatory.
“There’s still a lot of hesitation against vaccines,” Perry said, noting that 55 percent of his crew agreed to be vaccinated. “It’s my hope that people will just come out and get the vaccine, and know that I have it and that other staff members have it and we have [had] no problems, no problems. ‘
A total of 250 shots were fired over the weekend. Since everyone has received the Pfizer vaccine, which requires two doses, hospital staff will return later this month to administer the second shots.
For much of the pandemic, the studio was in a ‘bubble’ to protect against the spread of the virus. With the vaccination of the vaccines, the precaution will end on Saturday, April 10, although strict COVID-19 protocols will still apply to future productions.
This is one of the first examples of a producer helping to organize vaccinations for members of the production. As the deployment of vaccines varied from state to state, Hollywood studios largely remained out of the immunization effort, with the cast and crew saying it was their responsibility to set up their own appointment when they were considered eligible.