Guatemalan Caught Illegally Entering the Country Test Positive for COVID-19
On Tuesday, the twenty-second case of COVID-19 was detected in Belize. While this is a new case, patient nineteen has recovered. Now, patient twenty-two is a Guatemalan border jumper, who along with two other Guatemalan men and a Belizean was detained over the weekend at a checkpoint in Unitedville Village, Cayo. The four men reportedly entered Belize illegally through the western border and were swabbed and placed in quarantine at the Victor Galvez Stadium in San Ignacio Town. Patient twenty-two is asymptomatic and he, along with his Guatemalan friends, is believed to have been in the country for at least one day. The Belizean and the two other Guatemalans tested negative for the virus. Direct of Health Services Doctor Marvin Manzanero says that contact tracing for patient twenty-two has commenced.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services
“Not having the full written report I can share the preliminary data. This is somebody that was swabbed on Friday, somebody who had been caught at a checkpoint. The police took him to the hospital for him to be swabbed as part of the Ministry of Health protocols. Those samples were processed on Tuesday. As you know we only do processing of samples Tuesdays and Fridays. So we got that report late yesterday and then that’s when the process of identifying possible contacts and all the process gets started. The person was asymptomatic. He was swabbed basically because that is part of the routine process if anybody caught entering the country illegal.”
Marvin Manzanero
Hipolito Novelo
“Are you able to say how many days he was in the country before being caught?”
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“Our understanding is that it might have been one day but I don’t have that report because that would have, I guess police keeps that report in terms of how long they have been there. We are only alerted as the quarantine authority because we are told that somebody has been out or caught illegally and that is when we start our process. As I said we swabbed them and he is taken to the quarantine facility in San Ignacio.”
