Caye Caulker Sees Drop in COVID Cases

Like the rest of the country, COVID is on the island of Caye Caulker. With the omicron and delta variants in country, the village also saw an increase in COVID numbers earlier this month. But there has been a downward trend and up to the end of last week, there were only about twenty active cases on the island. Villanueva-Pott says that the numbers are down and they want to keep it that way.

Seleny Villanueva-Pott, Chairlady, Caye Caulker Village Council

Seleny Villanueva-Pott

“We’ve seen an increase of omicron all over the world and there is still delta so I wouldn’t want to say that it is specific to just the tourism arrival. We’ve seen the cases fluctuate; our numbers have gone high and it is dipping back down now – we are grateful for that – so we are nowhere near where we were with our high cases. I don’t have a specific number but I do know that the numbers are declining. We are nowhere near where we were maybe two or three weeks ago. There’s definitely been a dip and we are grateful for that. COVID is here; this is probably our new way of life and we have to be optimistic in what we do. We have to try and live as normal as possible, but we have to take all the necessary precautions. We must wear our mask, we must social distance [and] sanitize. But being economically hurt by COVID, we felt that, Caye Caulker knows what that is and I believe as business owners, we want to venture off and make some money come in. So the community is grateful for whatever tourist arrivals we are getting.”