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So, circling back to COVID 19, the Government of Belize is discouraging mass gatherings, but, at this time, not effecting a total travel ban.  The government is restricting entry to travellers from all restricted areas, including Europe.  Importantly, cruise ship arrivals will continue at this time.  

And while those are all contingencies, what’s the plan for when infected persons do appear and they have to be hospitalised, in intensive care, with ventilator support.  Yess, that will not happen with all infected persons - not at all, but it will happen with some. Do we have the intensive care capacity?  And do we have enough ventilators? That’s what we asked today:

Jules Vasquez "With the limited amount of ventilators, knowing the explosion of the corona, the infection rate. How would we hope to sort of address that in an adequate way?"

Dr. Marvin Manzanero - Director of Health Services
"Just in discussions with CEO Hoare, I went through the isolation unit, they have installed one ventilator already, they have done the connections and the drop. They have 4 ventilators for that unit; they have 6 in their routine ICU. We're in terms of getting an initial procurement of 6 but we've gotten budget for another 6, so it's 12 ventilators more than the 10 that KHMH already has."

Jules Vasquez
"Hard to source right now, could you concede? It's nothing you can buy on Amazon."

Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"I think we have gotten the assurance of the 6 we have already started the process of that can get here in one week, the other 6 we'll have to source outside of the US. Not all the ventilators would go to KHMH. You will also know that routinely we don't ventilate patience at the regional hospitals. What I think we have decided as a team and in tandem with KHMH that this is the opportunity to now set up ventilators at the regional hospitals, Belmopan, Dangriga and Orange Walk."

Jules Vasquez
"And the personnel."

Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"Again, it depends on which school that you came from, we had a discussion this morning. For example, I trained in Mexico, as an intern, you are trained in, I might have to go brush up on those skills because COVID 19 has un-brushed those skills if you will. Depends on the school, an intern should be able to handle ventilators"

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"When we think in terms of eventualities, the likelihood of things going to hell in a hand basket fast. We are trying to explore all sort of options. People talk about if you can find the money and we're saying we will have to find the money, there are hospital ships for hire that can come and more in our port that we can use to deal with this thing if there is an outbreak and serious proliferation."

Jules Vasquez
"Will there be a concession though and this is supposed from the DHS, that regardless of what the PAHO may say, that having a quarantine unit in the national referral hospital where there are so many immuno-compromised persons, where we know that non-communicable disease is one of the leading causes of death in Belize - death and hospitalization. Would you agree sir that it is counter intuitive to have a unit like that in such a hospital?"

Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"As I said I did the walk through and the flow of patience, the way it is structured now would not have an interaction with the regular hospital structure. Again, we are guided by our reality and what other countries are doing, we have gone to see where Honduras has their patience, where Jamaica has their patience, where the other Caribbean countries have their patience, nobody has done a COVID 19 hospital for ventilation purposes only. I haven't read that in the literature."