DAVAO CITY—The city government and its agency partners opened here last Friday the first 24-hour Covid-19 Cluster Clinic, promising to provide all the necessary services and management needs of residents related to coronavirus concerns.
The clinic at Doña Vicenta Village along Bajada is the first of eight clinics to be opened by the city government to provide free services and open for 24 hours. The Covid-19 Clinic starts serving Dabawenyos on Monday, December 6.
The city’s Covid-19 Task Force Spokesman Michelle Schlosser said the clinic is a one-stop-site offering free contact tracing, consultation and medicine, swab test, quarantine or isolation, transportation and food for suspected, probable, or confirmed Covid-19 cases.
“All services related to Covid-19 management is there. All will be provided to our patients,” Schlosser said. “The clinic does not limit in terms of the number of patients. We have enough doctors to address their concerns.”
The clinic will also utilize telemedicine for people to consult and communicate with doctors on Covid-related matters in the safety of their homes, she added.
Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio and Heather Variava, the Chargé d’ Affaires (ad interim) of the US Embassy in Manila, opened the clinic on Friday. The establishment of the cluster clinics was in partnership with Reach Health-US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Meanwhile, the city inches a few steps closer to herd immunity target with 1,136,577 million residents (about 87 percent of the target) already got their first dose. Schlosser also said about 967,053 had their second dose.
The 3-day vaccination program last November 29 to December 1 had 75,476 people who received vaccines.
As of 2020, Davao City has a population of 1,825,450, according to the Region 11 office of the National Economic and Development Authority. The city has set the target of 1.2 million to achieve herd immunity.