Would Tourism Minister Support a Nationwide Lockdown?

There has been widespread speculation that strict measures will be imposed in the days ahead to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus in Belize. While that has not been confirmed, we do know that the Briceño administration has postponed Friday’s planned Sitting of the House of Representatives and that a press conference will instead be held on that day on the COVID-19 strategy going forward. Earlier today, we were with the Minister of Tourism and asked him about the call for a nationwide lockdown by C.E.O. Kennedy Carrillo of the Ministry of Blue Economy. On her social media page over the weekend, Carrillo posted that with the spike in COVID-19 numbers and related deaths, there is a need to stop the spread of the virus. But a lockdown is a tough decision to make given the already fragile economic state of the country in the wake of the previous lockdown earlier this year. Minister Anthony Mahler says that, with advice from health experts, the government will make a decision whether or not to impose a nationwide lockdown.

Anthony Mahler

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism

“We will have a press conference on Friday, but I will listen to the experts. If a lockdown is required then, from a health standpoint, yes it is going to have some chaos effects on the economy because we are already nine ten months into COVID-19. I saw a report the other day that china is already operating at ninety percent of where they used to be, but that ten percent that has been gone has been so crippling for many small and medium enterprises and so the reality here in Belize that we are operating at about ten to fifteen percent of where we were last year. So you have eighty-five ninety percent that needs to come back for us to be where we were. And so it is crucial; there are a lot of businesses, a lot of people out of work, a lotta businesses at the brink of shutting their doors. And so it is a crucial time. We have to look at situation as a whole. We have to look at the health issues and we have to look at the economic issues. And so we have to be a responsible government. But if the health professionals, with data, tell us that there needs to do a lockdown then we will consider it as a government.”