Tourism Will Be Last Sector to Reopen

Dean Barrow

San Pedro is prime destination and tourism is the number one revenue generator for the Belizean economy but it will be the last sector to be reopened as the country rebounds from the COVID-19 crisis.  According to Prime Minister Barrow, the uncertainty of testing visitors arriving in Belize once the borders and airports are reopened is a consideration that they are grappling with.  In the absence of a universally certified rapid test, PM Barrow says that the temperature guns are not as reliable since there are various factors affecting the reading.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“Unfortunately, tourism is the last in terms of the easing of the restrictions against the entry of tourists into Belize.  That comes last, we are hopeful, as Dr. Gough reiterated, that there can soon be an acceptable rapid test that would then allow us to be able to administer the test to every visitor that’s coming to Belize.  Short of that, it’s going to be a while because that temperature gun thing, Dr. Manzanero and others have told us that that really doesn’t work.  It’s not like the current rapid tests that give you all these false negatives and so absolutely skew the picture in a bad way.  What I understand from Dr. Manzanero is that there’s nothing accurate about these temperature guns, a lot depends on what the travel conditions were, if you were cooped up in the cabin of a plane for a long time.  That can, as it were, interfere with the result so that you don’t or with the accuracy of the result, all sorts of things.  If you’re standing up out in the sun because in the old days there were long, long lines of tourists waiting to be processed that can interfere with the accuracy of the results.”