Belize District COVID Cases Down, But Remain Vigilant
While the COVID numbers have been on what seems to be an everlasting upward trend, the numbers have begun to show a downturn in the Belize District. This is significant because Belize City is one of the areas where the Delta variant was spreading rampantly. But Deputy Regional Manager for the Central Health Region, Dr. Melissa Musa, told News Five today that hospitalizations for COVID patients at the only public referral hospital, the Karl Heusner Memorial may not begin to show an immediate decline. She urges the public to continue being cautious heading into November.
Dr. Melissa Musa, Deputy Reg. Mgr., Central Health Region
“For the Belize District we have seen that we have reached our peak and now we are going down, not only with respect to the total number of positive cases, but also we have a large number of recoveries as well. To give you some information, in early October – the seventh of October – we had in the Belize District one thousand one hundred and eighteen active cases and today, up to yesterday evening, we had seven hundred and ten for the entire district and five hundred and ninety-two, excluding San Pedro. So the number has definitely improved significantly.”
Marion Ali
“What about ICU admissions and so forth – ventilations?”
Dr. Melissa Musa
“Well many times after an outbreak, you will continue to see hospital admissions, especially with COVID and especially with the Delta variant. We know that a lot of times people get very ill in the second week or in the latter phase of the illness. So we will continue to see admissions and it fluctuates. Over the last two or three days, yes, the numbers have gone down slightly – talking just about Karl Heusner, and in some of the regional hospitals as well, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that that is the trend. Any event that occurs where a lot of people are gathering poses a potential risk for spread, of course, so two holidays coming up may potentially cause a slight increase of spread. We’ve got to look at where we are when we go into the holidays as well, and we’ve got to look at the public health measures that are in place.”
