Dr. Marvin Manzanero Shares Latest COVID-19 Numbers
Turning to the growing numbers of persons carrying the virus, which put Belize as one of the countries in the Caribbean, with the highest number of cases. Now. more cases of COVID-19 will be announced later tonight and as wait for those results, as of Saturday night, Belize registered four hundred and fifty-two cases with four hundred and fourteen being active. Over the weekend, sixty-four new cases were recorded. Three cases were identified in the Stann Creek District and are all related to a previously identified case. Thirteen cases were registered in the Belize District while eleven cases were recorded in the Cayo and Orange Walk districts separately. San Pedro registered twenty-six new cases. There are two ventilated patients at K.H.M.H. and have a highly suspect case also at KHMH. Three of the new cases are three field officers involved in contact tracing and mapping exercises. Director of Health Services Doctor Marvin Manzanero broke down the figures for News Five.
Marvin Manzanero
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services
“We had four district where most of the, actually three Belize Orange Walk and Cayo and some samples still positive for San Pedro.”
Hipolito Novelo
“So right now we are at more than four hundred cases of COVID-19?”
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“Yes. More than four hundred. Just riving the timeline we went from a hundred and fifty in the course of days we were almost doubled that amount. It is a significant increase because you are having a space of seven to eight days we did significant amount of positives. We close to a thousand one hundred tests in a space of seven days and some days you are getting forty percent of your samples positive. It is a significant increase and you can only start to plateau that curve once your numbers are less than what you have been reporting in the previous days?”
Hipolito Novelo
“Is it accurate to say that COVID-19 is all over the country? “
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“Toledo district has not really reported any cases and has no active case as far as we know. Dangriga has two clusters I would say. One is related to family that had sought care in Belmopan. They are all from a single household. It is five members. The others from the tugboat five persons from the tugboat. The third cluster is you will is related to Santa Marta. So it doesn’t seem to having ongoing community transmission as may be the case in northern villages, as may be the case in San Pedro. So it is still sporadic closures in some districts.”
Hipolito Novelo
“This is the first wave so to speak of this virus, have we lost control of it?”
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
“I don’t think so. As I said it doesn’t seem t be widespread as in some areas more than other. And I think with the restrictions that have been put in place and the fact that we hope that people can start internalizing the message on a personal level I think that should help us flattening that curve. It required a community effort. This cannot be just a Ministry of Health situation.”
