Additional quarantine and isolation facilities at the Davao International Airport are being built by the Department of Public Works and Highways for arriving airline passengers.
DPWH Secretary Mark Villar said he has instructed DPWH Undersecretary and Task Force to Facilitate Augmentation of Local and National Facilities Emil Sadain to put up more isolation facilities for passengers swabbed for coronavirus disease upon arrival at the Davao airport who will have to wait for the release of the test results.
“The construction of an additional 400-bed isolation facility is on-going.”
In his inspection in Davao City, Sadain reported to Villar that the construction of an additional 400-bed isolation facility is ongoing as the city government of Davao under Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio has started implementing stringent control measures to ensure that travelers will not transmit the dreaded virus in the city.
Without exceptions, health protocols are strictly being observed at the Davao International Airport and every airline passenger who has no 48 to 72-hour reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) or swab test negative result from the time of departure at their point of origins will have to submit to a swab test on arrival to Davao City to contain the spread of the deadly virus, Sadain said.
The public works chief, as the isolation czar, supports the control measures to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the Davao Region.
The DPWH Task Force has put up modified health facility tents with 400 beds at the new Davao Airport as temporary staying place of passengers including locally stranded individuals.
The DPWH Task Force and Regional Office 11 headed by Director Allan Borromeo has put up in August 20 modified health facility tents with 400 beds at the new Davao Airport as temporary staying place of passengers including locally stranded individuals until swab results are released and isolation/testing facility with 200 beds located inside the old airport area.
Other ongoing healthcare facilities for Davao City are being rushed for completion this October.
These include the following: one isolation facility in Panacan with 40 beds capacity, and another dormitory facility for medical frontliners working inside Davao Southern Philippines Medical Center with 32 beds.