DHS Outlines What Restrictions Relaxation May Look Like

At the top of the newscast, Director of Health Services, Doctor Marvin Manzanero shared that Belize has contained its first wave of the COVID-19, but the number of cases are increasing in the region.  Despite the fact that everyone is now required to wear a mask and practice physical distancing, the risk of a second wave is real.  So, moving forward, Doctor Manzanero says some of the restrictions may remain in place for certain settings and some measures will be relaxed step by step. One of the good news coming out of this is the way hospitals are operating. Doctor Manzanero explains.

Marvin Manzanero

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“I don’t know about gyms and the reason with gyms is because that is a closed environment. You have multiple people coming, sweating and you won’t be wearing a mask. Doing exercise outside is going to be different because you are not going to be in a big room. Parks – I assume you are talking about socializing in parks – if you are not in the same household, the social distancing measure remains. A gradual re-opening; there is not going to be an aggressive re-opening recommendations from us. It has to be a scaled up approach just like you recall when we had said initially twenty-five people in a gathering and then we went to ten – that is more or less the same mechanism that is going to happen. The borders remain closed for now and remain open only for trade. Hospitals were asked to go back to their new routine as of today and so that will start to happen in trying to pan surgeries and consultation for chronic patients so that they will be spaced out for the day up to late afternoon you can have patients that are coming in on a routine basis as we go into a new norm.”