BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Mar. 4, 2021– In our last issue, we reported on the official launch of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign in Belize. Since then, as of March 3, 2021, 673 healthcare workers, those persons on the front lines since the start of the pandemic, have been given their first dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

The remaining 383 doses are expected to be administered by this week’s end.

On Saturday, an additional 25,000 of the same Covishield AstraZeneca vaccines should arrive from India. These additional vaccines will keep our inoculation program in motion until the first shipment of vaccines from the COVAX facility arrives in the country.

A total of 12,329 cases have been identified in Belize since the start of the pandemic. Of that number, around 11,916 have been recorded as recoveries. To date, 86,570 tests have been conducted on a total of 78,096 persons in the country. Our fatality rate stands at 2.55%, with 206 males and 108 females succumbing to the deadly virus in the country — resulting in a total of 314 deaths that have been recorded since the start of the outbreak in Belize.

Since our last update, we’ve seen only 3 new recorded cases from a batch of 222 tests processed on March 4, 2021. Twenty-one persons have been marked as recovered and no new fatalities have been logged. On that day, March 4, 2 persons were hospitalized with Covid-19 — both of them needing intensive care.

On March 3, the Epidemiological Unit recorded 8 new cases from a batch of 450 tests processed. Twenty-five recoveries were recorded, and fortunately, there were no additional deaths.

On Tuesday, March 2, the country again recorded no additional deaths related to Covid-19.  However, on that day, two persons, both needing intensive care, were admitted to healthcare facilities. From the batch of 390 tests processed on that day, 7 new cases were identified. Ten recoveries were also recorded.

Globally, this deadly virus continues to wreak havoc. According to the World Health Organization, on the week ending February 28, 2021, 2.6 million new cases were recorded, which is the first increase after six weeks of consecutive declining numbers. Over 63,000 deaths were recorded over the same period.

Latin America recorded 1,129,929 cases in the seven days leading up to February 28, 2021, and 33,951 deaths during that period. In total, 1,205,245 deaths in total have been recorded in that region. In Brazil, a new variant is causing yet another deadly wave of infections.

According to WHO, as of Thursday, March 4, 2021 4:02 p.m. CET, there have been 114,853,685 confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide. Of that number 2,554,694 deaths have been reported.