BELIZE CITY, Mon. Aug. 3, 2020– Latina America has been declared the new epicenter of COVID-19 by the World Health Organization. To date, cases have been steadily increasing across the region, with Brazil and Mexico seeing the highest number of deaths.

A total of 4.7 million cases of the virus have been recorded across Latin America, and according to the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, over 190,000 persons in the region have died.

Zoning in closer to home, the virus has spread like wildfire in Mexico, with over 439,000 confirmed cases and over 47,500 deaths recorded.

Mexico’s death toll has become the world’s third-highest, and local authorities have said that they believe that the real number of infections will likely be significantly higher than the number of cases that have been reported.

In Guatemala, the number of cases continues to climb as well; recent data shows over 51,000 recorded cases and almost 2,000 deaths.

In Honduras, about 43,000 cases and 1,300 deaths have been recorded, while El Salvador reported approximately 17,000 cases and 477 deaths.

The proximity of these countries to Belize and the porous nature of our borders with Mexico and Guatemala have presented a challenging situation for our security officials. Recently, we have also seen a number of imported cases due to border jumpers and persons who traveled outside the country to these locations.

The Police Department in Belize has established hotlines to report illegal crossing activities in an effort to curb the influx of illegal border jumpers who may possibly be carriers of the virus.

As cases continue to increase, there are concerns that healthcare systems in the region could become overwhelmed. While some countries have tightened lockdown measures to avoid further spread, countries like Mexico and Brazil have continued to take less severe lockdown measures.

Globally, there have been more than 17.5 million coronavirus cases reported, and nearly 679,000 deaths, according to John Hopkins University.