After 53 Days, COVID Case #19 is Detected in Belize

After a record fifty-three days without a positive case of COVID-19, a new case was confirmed today by the Ministry of Health. It involves a twenty-seven-year-old Belizean man who returned to the country on May twenty-third on the Rhapsody of the Sea ship, of the Royal Caribbean fleet.  The Belizean had spent seventy days at sea, off the coast of Tampa, before arriving on Belizean shores thirteen days ago as part of the repatriation process. Along with nine others who came on the same cruise ship, the individual was placed on mandatory fourteen-day quarantine at the Radisson Hotel, but random testing before he was released indicated a positive case.  The Ministry of Health has immediately started with the contact tracing of persons he may have been touch with. On the day they arrived, the passengers said that while on the cruise ship they were also on quarantine.   Director of Health Services, Doctor Marvin Manzanero confirmed to News Five late this evening that case number nineteen is asymptomatic.

On the Phone: Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“That case was detected earlier today after screening and confirmatory tests both came out positive for SARS COVID 2. It’s in a male who came off the cruise ship towards the two weeks, the first cruise ship that brought Belizeans back to our shore.”