BELIZE CITY, Thurs. June 17, 2021– The country is inching forward slowly towards herd immunity. The vaccination efforts by the Ministry of Health and Wellness have been ongoing and were ramped up following a recent donation of 100K AstraZeneca vaccines by the government and people of Mexico.
This donation is expected to ensure the continuity of our vaccination campaign until another shipment of vaccines, our third allocation from the COVAX facility, arrives in Belize — which is scheduled to take place shortly. Data released on June 16 shows that 75,123 persons have received at least their first dose of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine or China’s Sinopharm vaccine. Around 20,329 persons are completely immunized, with 845 persons getting the jab on that day.
Today, the Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams, finally received his first jab of the AstraZeneca vaccine, after being pressed by the media, particularly 7News’ news director, Jules Vasquez, about his delay in joining the ranks of the vaccinated weeks after the rollout of vaccines for law enforcement officers. At the time, Commissioner Williams had said that he would wait until more members of his department received their jab before starting his vaccination process.
In his message on the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ Facebook page, Commissioner Williams commented, “The Police Department has an important role in the overall fight against this pandemic, we have been affected greatly as frontline workers but now we have a vaccine to help us move forward as a country.”
The vaccination effort is also continuing in the tourism sector. With the first cruise ship scheduled to resume arrivals at our shores sometime in mid-July, workers and stakeholders in the tourism industry are now being even more strongly encouraged to get vaccinated. Today, the vaccination team from the Southern Health Region visited Harvest Caye, where over 90 persons were vaccinated.
The Health Ministry is calling all citizens to register for their vaccine appointment online using this link: https://vrsa.health.gov.bz/.
No updated Covid-19 was release on Thursday, June 17, 2021. A note from the Ministry states, “We regret to inform that the Ministry will not be producing our daily Covid19 data report for today due to technical issues we are currently experiencing. We anticipate a resolution by tomorrow which would then allow us to produce and release a two days COVID19 data report to include data from today.”
With the release of the most recent COVID-19, June 16, by the Health Ministry, the current COVID-19 statistics are as follows: Since the start of the pandemic in Belize, a total of 12,9994 cases have been confirmed. Of that number, a total of 12,507 persons have recovered — a recovery rate of 96.3 %. Recently, the country recorded two new deaths, both male persons, from the Orange Walk District. At this time, our death count stands at 327 — a case fatality rate of 2.52 %.
A total of 145 cases are currently active across the country according to recently published data.
On June 16, 5 new cases were identified from 851 tests that were processed by the team from the Health Ministry. A total of 17 additional recoveries were recorded, and 5 persons were hospitalized at the time, one of whom was admitted to an intensive care unit.
On that day, one death was also recorded: a male persons from the Orange Walk District.
On Tuesday, June 15, a total of 859 tests were processed and 18 new cases were identified. Eleven additional recoveries were recorded, and 6 persons were hospitalized. One of those persons needed intensive care. No new death was recorded on that day.
Over the weekend, from June 12-14, the country recorded 34 new cases of the virus from the 1741 tests that were processed. A total of 16 recoveries were recorded and 4 active hospitalizations were logged. One person required intensive care.
Over the weekend, another death was also recorded — again, a male person from the Orange Walk District.
On Friday, June 11, a total of 14 new cases were found from the 735 tests processed. Three additional recoveries were recorded and 7 active hospitalizations were logged. Two persons were admitted to an ICU at the time. No death was recorded on that day.
Globally, the calls for a more equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines are being echoed by world leaders. Many countries are facing a rising number of cases and deaths without any inoculation program in place or ongoing to combat the spread of the deadly virus.
At the recent G7 summit hosted by the UK, the US president, Joe Biden, pledged a donation of 500 million vaccines by June of 2022, with 100 million doses being distributed over the next 6 months.
In total, the G7 countries have donated 1 billion vaccine doses to countries around the world. Most of these vaccines will be distributed through the COVAX scheme.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus, in responding to the G7 countries’ pledge, said “We need more, and we need them faster.”
In the US, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has designated the Delta variant, first discovered in India, as a “variant of concern.” Scientists believe it is more transmissible and/or can cause more severe disease.
According to WHO, a total of 176,693,988 confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been identified since the start of the pandemic. A total of 3,830,304 deaths have been reported to WHO, and as of 16 June 2021, a total of 2,377,780,590 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.