COVID Clusters Identified at the Prison, Sister Cecilia Home, and Other Institutions

The Ministry of Health and Wellness organized a virtual conference today with the Director of Public Health Services, Doctor Melissa Diaz-Musa. The interview was to give an update on the increasing COVID-19 numbers. For the second week in a row, the numbers have jumped by more than a hundred and between the weeks of December sixth and twelfth; there were two hundred and fifty-nine new confirmed cases. The daily positivity rate is now up to nine point nine-three. The increase is in Belize District and according to Doctor Diaz-Musa, there was an outbreak at the Belize Central Prison and several other institutions, but that the spread has been contained. 

Melissa Diaz-Musa

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Director of Public Health Services, MOHW

“In week forty-nine which is just the first week of December, there has been an increase. And if you notice the infographic from yesterday, you would see that the positivity rate has gone to nine point nine percent. This is a significant jump. There are many reasons for this. We have not only been seeing an increase in COVID cases in homes, but we have had an outbreak at Kolbe, the prison and that has accounted for a significant increase for the Belize District. So for the Belize District for the COVID cases, we have gone up from about two percent to the last week going up to almost sixteen or seventeen percent. And so that is the reason why we have seen the significant jump. The prison had about forty-two to forty-three percent positivity rate last week. They have managed it well. We have had experience in the last two years dealing with outbreaks at the prison. The medical team there, they’ve been able to isolate the positive cases and they’ve been able to contain the transmission. In fact, as of yesterday, they’ve had only two new positive cases and today they do have some persons to test, but the majority have recovered; they’ve had no sever illnesses so far and no need for any hospitalizations. We have seen for example Sister Cecilia Home; we’ve picked up a few and throughout the last two years, we have seen places reporting. Because the transmissibility is high, we would see especially in conditions where persons live close together and are associated for long period of time, we would see higher number of cases in these places. Now for Sister Cecilia Home, for example, that outbreak has also been contained. But we do investigate other areas as well. And as we see one or two or three persons coming from one facility or one work place, we are then alerted and we send our teams in, we do our surveillance, we do our testing and we give the advice that we need to give in order to break the transmission.”