BLUE CREEK, Orange Walk District, Fri. July 24, 2020– Fourteen days after a State of Emergency (SOE) was declared for the San Felipe and Blue Creek villages, which are located near Belize’s border with Mexico, the SOE was lifted today by Prime Minister Dean Barrow, two weeks short of the intended 1-month lockdown period, and life returned to normal in the two villages.

The lifting of the SOE was carried out on the advice of Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services, who declared that after intense contact tracing and mapping exercises were carried out in the two villages, the communities were found to be free of additional COVID-19 infections, which had been brought in from Mexico by 7 members of the communities.

The lockdown of the two communities took place on July 10, after the aforementioned persons were found to be border jumpers and had tested positive for COVID-19, after they made an illegal trip to Mexico. There were fears that they may have infected other persons in the village, and they were all put in mandatory quarantine, during which contact tracing was carried out.

Today, Quintana Roo, Mexico, the state where Chetumal is located, is reporting that as at 12:00 today, there were 6,799 new cases of COVID-19 and 889 COVID-19-related deaths.