Vaccination rate stalls; boosters now available for all

And while the number of infections decreases in one part of the country, there is still a stretch further that the Ministry of Health has to go before it gets the majority of the population vaccinated. Doctor Musa says the vaccinated population is currently at around forty-four percent. She explained that the vaccinations helped to fight off the deadly Delta variant. Now she is hoping that people will go back for their booster shots as well.

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Deputy Manager, Central Health Region

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa

“I know that in other districts it’s fluctuating as well, but I believe that Belize, Orange Walk and Corozal, we are seeing the downward trend and Cayo, I think, is plateauing at this time and the other two districts remain higher than we would like but with the public health measures and with enforcement and with continuing vaccinations, hopefully we will be able to have downward trend in all the districts as soon as possible. With the boosters we have seen people coming out. It’s definitely not like when we had first opened up all the phases in July and August when we had hundreds of people coming out every day and when we got Pfizer, of course you know that was a big success when we started to vaccinate the children between twelve and seventeen. With regard to the boosters, people are coming in and we’re happy to see that because – especially the vulnerable population – they have ensured that they are coming in, so older persons, persons with diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, persons who have asthma, these persons are making it their business to come in to get their boosters. But we do need to promote it more. We do need for the entire country to be aware that boosters are available for anyone eighteen years and over. You have a choice of AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson or Pfizer booster. For those persons who have had Sinopharm, they can have Sinopharm or Pfizer booster as well. Something important is that if you’ve gotten your first dose of Johnson and Johnson, it is now recommended that anytime after eight weeks you can come in for a booster shot. We would have been in a terrible state if we had a very little amount of persons vaccinated, so we know that the vaccines have worked. And when we compare to other countries with much less percentage and we see what’s happening to them, we know that the community and everybody coming out to get vaccinated has really helped our country to be able to get to this level that we are right now.”