While face-to-face classes remain suspended, a Catholic university in Davao City will soon be bustling with activity because it will be used as Covid-19 vaccination site.

The Bajada campus gym of the University of the Immaculate Conception (UIC) will be repurposed as the city government works to administer the vaccine en masse.

Archbishop Romulo Valles of Davao said the school has recently agreed with the Department of Health to serve as a vaccination center.

“The university is most willing to allow this particular facility to be of help in the vaccination campaign of the DOH,” Valles said.

It can be noted that UIC has been supportive to the city’s medical frontliners since the early days of the pandemic.

For almost a year now, the university has been “home” to the nurses of the Southern Philippine Medical Center who are particularly attending to Covid-19 patients.

“UIC will always be supportive in any way we can,” said Religious of the Virgin Mary (RVM) Sister Marissa Viri, the university’s president.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has earlier offered church facilities to serve as vaccination hubs ahead of the arrival of Covid-19 vaccines in the country.

In the country’s capital, the Manila archdiocese and the Novaliches diocese have already allowed the government to use its parishes and schools as inoculation sites.

Valles, who is also the CBCP president, said that “Gospel-inspired actions” are needed “to remind us of goodness and caring for each other”.

“Each one can give his or her share in our collective effort to combat and end this pandemic,” he said.