An Update on COVID Patient #19
Marvin Manzanero
There is now case number twenty of the coronavirus and as you heard, the Belizean woman is a border jumper. Earlier today, before number twenty was known, the Ministry of Health said that case nineteen that was detected last Saturday, doesn’t signal a second wave of COVID-19 for Belize. That person, according to the Director of Health Services, appears to have contracted the virus over five weeks ago. He is asymptomatic and remains under quarantine. The other nine persons who returned on that cruise ship have all been released.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services
“I can say that we are not at square one, back to square one as some of the notes that were circulating were stating and we also don’t feel that we started a wave two in terms of COVID-19 cases. This is the first group that arrived. You will also recall that when this cruise ship arrived. You will also recall that when this cruise ship arrived on the Saturday we were not, at Health, made aware until Friday evening before they docked. They docked early Saturday morning. We had also placed in our protocols that were not going to be testing people upon arrival even if your test is negative you were still going to be placed under mandatory quarantine of fourteen days. So, we decided that we were going to be testing people only prior to them being released from the facility. So, our investigation into this case is that the ten Belizeans who came on this ship actually came from seven cruise ships into Rhapsody of the Seas. We had intended to release all of them the Friday but because we had a positive sample on Friday all of them were kept back one more day and he remains there. After Saturday all the other persons were released around midday because they had been negative and because we were satisfied with the investigation that the risk they had was very minimal to low risk. From the other two cruise ships that arrived on Sunday, May thirty-first and Monday, June first, a similar exercise is going to be conducted in terms of trying to determine where all the Belizeans were prior to arriving here or whether they had point in fact been changing ships along the way. Patient nineteen – we feel is an isolated case and it is contained case and this underscores the relevance and importance that people can understand pressuring from outside for people to go under mandatory quarantine for the time being.”
