BELIZE CITY, Thurs. May 20, 2021– In our midweek edition, we reported on a Covid-19 outbreak detected at the Princess Casino. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health and Wellness announced that that outbreak had spread to two primary schools in Belize City — Queen’s Square Anglican School, and both the upper and lower sections of Wesley Primary School. The Health Ministry has stated that its rigorous and ongoing contact tracing resulted in the early detection and isolation of these cases — which, it is hoped, restricted the further spread of the outbreak. The Minister of Education, Hon. Francis Fonseca, stated, in reference to the emergence of cases in two primary schools, that while the outbreaks are alarming, his Ministry is not overly worried at this time.
Following the recent outbreak, an informal call was issued to casino workers to get vaccinated by a Ministry official, Dr. Natalia Beer, who is the ministry’s Maternal and Child Health Technical Advisor. Dr. Beer stated that those persons are classified as tourism workers and thus are currently eligible to receive the vaccine.
As the Ministry continues to urge persons in the country to reach out to health facilities to start the immunization process, teams from MOHW have traveled to the deep south, as far as Graham Creek, in order to administer vaccines.
The MOHW has also rolled out the 10,000 Sinopharm vaccines donated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last month. The World Health Organization (WHO) gave the jab emergency approval recently. Those vaccines will be available for persons who have not yet started the inoculation process, with members of the Belize Chinese Association being among the first to get the Sinopharm jab.
This week the Government of Belize also released updated Covid-19 regulations — with the curfew period on Thursday being reduced. On that day, the curfew starts at midnight and continues until 5:00 a.m. The curfew hours on the other days of the week remain the same.
The most recent infographic released by the MOHW on May 20, 2021, shows a total of 77 active cases across the country. Since the start of the pandemic in Belize, a total of 12,761 persons have been infected with 12,349 having recovered. To date, a total of 323 deaths have been recorded across the country, with 211 being men and 112 being women. As of May 19, a total of 56,719 persons in the country have received at least one dose of the vaccine, with 9,668 being fully immunized.
On May 20, a total of 9 new cases were found from a batch of 650 tests processed. The Ministry reported 4 additional recoveries and 2 hospitalizations. No new deaths were recorded.
On Wednesday, May 19, a total of 8 new cases were identified from a batch of 592 tests processed. Four new recoveries were found and no new hospitalizations were recorded. The Ministry recorded no new death on that day. On May 18, 3 new cases were found from 645 tests processed. At that time 3 active hospitalizations were recorded, but none of the hospitalized persons needed intensive care. No new deaths or recoveries were recorded on that day.
Over the weekend, from May 15 to 17, a total of 1,458 tests were processed and 28 new cases were found. Five additional recoveries were recorded during that time, and two persons were actively hospitalized. Neither of the two needed intensive care. No deaths were recorded during that period.
And on Friday, May 14th, a total of 5 new cases were found in a batch of 766 tests processed. Six recoveries were recorded and no hospitalizations or deaths were logged.
Internationally, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc in India, healthcare workers are now faced with yet another complication believed to be linked to the virus. Some patients with Covid-19 and some who have recovered have contracted a fungal infection known as mucormycosis.
This fungus affects the lungs, nose, and sinuses and can spread to the eyes, causing blindness, or to the brain — thus triggering headaches and seizures.
According to the WHO, as of May 20, 2021, a total of 164,523,894 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been recorded, with 3,412,032 deaths being reported to WHO. A total of 1,407,945,776 vaccine doses have been administered globally.