About 5,000 persons have been tested by the Manila City government's free drive thru and walk-in COVID-19 testing centers in its first week of operations, Mayor Francisco "Isko" Domagoso said on Friday.
Drive thru testing sites catered to around 4,000 patients while walk-in testing sites catered to more than 1,000 patients, Domagoso said in an interview on ANC's Headstart.
The Manila City government currently has two drive thru testing sites, one each at the Kartilya ng Katipunan and Quirino Grandstand, while it also has two walk-in testing centers at the Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Medical Center (GABMMC) and Ospital ng Sampaloc (OsSam).
"It only proves that people will voluntarily submit him or herself to test, as long as it is accessible and as much as possible affordable or free," Domagoso said.
"So if that’s how the people feel, I think we should give in to it, because we don’t need to look for them anymore to test them, because they will come to us on their own," he added.
With the city government's drive thru centers, Domagoso said 667 tested positive after their blood samples were processed using the serology testing machines.
The Manila City Mayor stressed that COVID-19 is a "universal problem, it has to be approached inclusively."
He also assured that the identities of those who tested positive at the drive thru and walk-in tests will be protected by the city government.
"They are properly identified because this is voluntarily. We take and protect their information. Only government professionals in the medical sectors can see this. Nothing more, nothing less," the Mayor said.
Aside from GABMMC and OsSam, Domagoso said the local government aims to open more walk-in centers to reach the city's vulnerable sectors.
"We wanted to prioritize areas of concern, ibig sabihin may mass problem based on data of previous week or months. So naturally we'll go further and dig deeper in the community," Domagoso said.
All drive thru and walk-in centers are open to all Manila City residents and non-Manila City residents from Monday to Friday.