COVID-19 Cases Rising, C.D.C. Warns Against Travel to Belize

An additional three hundred and eighty-six cases of COVID-19 were confirmed over the weekend. This puts the total number of COVID-19 cases to seven thousand, seven hundred and sixty-nine.  There are three thousand, seven hundred and forty-seven active cases and a total of one hundred and seventy three deaths, including the three additional deaths reported over the weekend. Thirty-one persons are hospitalized with the illness while four are currently in the Intensive Care Unit.  The fatality rate now stands at two point two-three percent. The Ministry of Health and Wellness says that the number of positive cases will drastically increase because testing has ramped up.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a travel advisory for Belize which is now at level four: very high level of COVID-19.  The C.D.C. says that travelers should avoid all travel to Belize because travelling may increase chances of getting and spreading COVID-19.  Prime Minister John Briceño has met with Minister of Health and Wellness Michel Chebat and top health officials to create a strategy to effectively control the spread of the virus.  

John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“This morning we did had a meeting with the Minister of Health, a few of his people in the ministry and some doctors from the private sectors, or the private clinics and one of the doctors in particular was making the point statistically is about eight percent of the people will be okay, twenty percent, fifteen percent will need medical attention and five percent will go into intubation. So the thing is to make sure that fifteen percent don’t go there. So we have to do everything possible to try to keep people away from getting to intubation. Intubation is not only that it is very difficult to survive because even in the other countries you have rates of sixty percent of not surviving. So what we need to do the strategy has to be that that fifteen percent or that twenty percent is to give them the proper medical attention so that they don’t need intubation. It is not only that it is difficult to survive, it is very expensive so it in the longer in cheaper in spending the extra money in keeping these people from going into intubation.”