COVID-19 Update

In March of 2020, in response to the pandemic, Friends of San Lucas brought all of our long-term volunteers home and closed the visitors program.  We still don’t have a firm date for reopening it.

Covid-19 has been prevalent in San Lucas since last fall and the clinic has seen dozens of patients. Several Mission employees have been infected but no Mission employees have been seriously ill.  But there have been deaths in San Lucas and the communities.

While there is talk of a vaccine in Guatemala, there is no fixed timeframe and a lack of infrastructure would preclude the use of a vaccine that requires extensive refrigeration.  Speculation now is that there won’t be widespread vaccinations until 2022.

Mission programming was initially affected but has continued unabated since last summer.  Houses and stoves are being built; coffee is being bought, processed and exported; students are being taught under a distance-learning model; the Women’s Center distributed 6,000 meals to front-line workers and is now starting classes with small groups of women; the Charity with Dignity program distributed over 4500 bags of food last year and is continuing the program this year; and the Clinic continues to offer services to Covid-19 patients as well as providing medical care to non-Covid patients.

If you have questions or would like more information please contact Kelly Dolphin at kelly.dolphin@sanlucasmission.org