Health Official: W.H.O’s Decision to Call Off COVID Emergency Might Still Be a Ways Off
The daily and weekly numbers of new COVID infections have waned considerably, so much so that the government has lifted the nightly curfew and resumed many of the public events that had been placed on suspension. But, despite Bloomberg’s report last week that the W.H.O. was exploring how and when to call an end to the crisis, local health professionals are cautious about how soon we should embrace that notion. Deputy Manager of the Central Health Region, Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa says there are still a couple factors that we need to consider first.
Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa
Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Deputy Manager, Central Health Region
“There is no definitive decision as yet to call off the crisis or to say that we’re over the pandemic. A lot is still changing and as you quite rightly mentioned, we do have countries reporting high cases of a sub-variant of Omicron, the BA-2, and countries across Europe as well as Hong Kong, Germany, some parts of Denmark, China have also reported that public health measures had to be heightened in these areas and for instance in Hong Kong, I know that the report there is that they have cases doubling and they have a high mortality rate at this point and the hospitals are full. Different countries will have different concerns, depending on what has happened over the last two years. We know that in Belize we’ve had four waves or outbreaks and we know that we’ve had the original strain; we’ve had a Delta outbreak and Omicron. We still need to encourage especially the booster doses, especially for persons who probably had their second dose in the earlier part or the mid part of last year, June or July. We are encouraging you all to come in to get your booster shot as soon as possible. It’s available all over the country. There are many sites. We also go to office, we go to homes, and we go to villages. You can also call the different health regions to find out where a pop-up shop might be, but definitely we try to make the vaccinations as accessible as possible to everyone.”
Marion Ali
“Is there a fourth shot that we should be considering?”
Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa
“That’s something that is being discussed, but not in Belize a yet. We still need to ensure that we get more persons vaccinated and we get more boosters out before we can discuss a fourth dose.”
