Did Asymptomatic Cases from the North cause the Outbreak on San Pedro?

Marvin Manzanero

Tonight, there are one hundred and twenty-seven cases of COVID-19 on the island of San Pedro, Ambergris Caye.  And going two weeks, the Ministry of Health has been mapping the cases to identify cases. In their tracing exercise, the Epidemiology Unit believes they have come closer to identifying how the virus made its way onto the island.  Today, during the Ask the Experts Webcast, Director of Health Services Doctor Marvin Manzanero gave a timeline of the outbreak and says that it points to the virus originating from somewhere in the north, likely through an asymptomatic person who travelled to the island after the country reopened following the lockdown.

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“We were looking closely at the calendars and the movement of people. You will recall that the SOE was lifted on June thirtieth, which I believe was a Tuesday and more free movement was ongoing after July first. When we follow the timeline of how cases started to develop on the island and when it actually erupted around particular activities the third week of July, the theory we have right now at the Epidemiology Unit is that from that first weekend in San Pedro is when we would have asymptomatic people move from, more than likely, the northern districts to San Pedro. And the following weekend, we noted that there were a significant number of people moving to the island as well on vacation and there were lots of activities being promoted on the island for Belizeans for local rates at the hotels and having a higher number of people staying there. So, we felt that it would have been from the first weekend, so from around the third of July to the tenth of July would have been the weekends when there would have been an unusual amount of people who may have been one or two asymptomatic carriers. Then, people would have been exhibiting signs and symptoms around the fifteenth and sixteenth of July with an explosion of bigger numbers during the third week of July. So, we are finding that now two and three weeks later translating that into the numbers that we have.”