BELIZE CITY, Thurs. July 8, 2021– The Ministry of Health and Wellness is engaged in a countrywide communication campaign as a part of their relaunched COVID-19 vaccination program. The full rollout of all phases of the program has resulted in a mounting rate of increase in the number of daily vaccinations.
The government is now calling all frontline workers to get the jab sometime in July or be subject to biweekly Covid-19 testing. There has been no indication as yet that the government will be covering the cost of testing for all frontline workers, but the Police Commissioner has told local media that police officers will not need to pay for the biweekly test.
And while the Health Ministry says that these efforts are being undertaken to expand the percentage of the population that is immunized, they are getting some pushback from a number of government-paid workers who are still not totally confident in the effects of the vaccine. Some feel that this provision for mandatory testing is a backdoor approach to mandatory vaccinations.
As of July 7, 2021, a total of 99,591 persons in the country have started the immunization process. On that day, 4,232 persons got the jab — resulting in a total of 36,578 persons now being marked as fully immunized.
Data released today, July 8, shows a total of 304 active cases of COVID-19 in the country. A total of 13,476 cases have been identified in Belize since the start of the pandemic, with 12,824 persons having recovered. Our COVID-19-related death toll currently stands at 330.
Today, Thursday, July 8, a total of 32 cases were identified from a batch of 1418 tests processed. A total of 23 additional recoveries were identified, and 7 infected persons were hospitalized, two of whom needed intensive care.
On July 7, 35 new cases were identified from a batch of 1248 samples tested. The Health Ministry confirmed 38 new recoveries on that day and 5 new hospitalizations, with two of the hospitalized persons needing intensive care.
On Tuesday, July 6, the Health Ministry carried out a total of 1351 tests and discovered 18 new cases. They recorded 7 new hospitalizations (two in ICUs) and 34 additional recoveries.
Over the weekend, and on Monday, the Health Ministry recorded a total of 48 cases from 2553 samples processed. There were also 6 hospitalizations, again with two hospitalized persons needing intensive care.
And on Friday, July 2, one additional death was recorded. The victim is a woman from the Orange Walk District. Also on that day, a total of 43 new cases were identified from a batch of 1356 tests processed.
At this time, the country is on edge as it awaits the results from the gene sequencing testing done at Baylor College to determine the type of Covid-19 variant that is currently circulating in Belize.
Recent data shows that variants of concern were discovered in at least 30% of samples from a particular batch.
Last Friday, the Ministry of Health and Wellness decided to impose a lockdown on three southern villages (Midway, where an outbreak was identified; Conejo and Barranco) for a two-week period to limit the spread of infection in those villages.
And regionally, the black fungus, mucormycosis, has been identified in Mexico. The Mexican Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell, announced in a statement on Thursday that it was detected in a 34-year-old male patient in the State of Mexico.
Internationally, since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a total of 184,820,132 confirmed cases have been identified. Of that number, 4,002,209 deaths have been recorded. And as of 8th July 2021, a total of 3,032,217,959 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.