7 News Belize

House Speaker Sets Tone, Parliament Takes COVID-19 Seriously
posted (March 19, 2020)

And when that “Ask the Expertsâ€￾ session finished at a few minutes to ten in the Government Press Office - which is on the ground floor of the National Assembly Building, attention shifted to the chamber upstairs where the House of Representatives met for the annual budget debate.  It’s usually a two day marathon of malice, full of self proclamation on one side, and fault-finding on the other, when slings and arrows are hurled in wholesale volume.  But, a debate in a time of Corona is a different thing altogether.  There was really no debate, which we’ll tell you about shortly. 

The Speaker opened the session with a cautionary tale of Coronavirus coming to Belize and the toll it will take:

Hon. Laura Tucker-Longsworth - Speaker, House of Representatives
"I came to the meeting this morning - in fact, I didn’t sleep very well because I agonized over coming to this meeting, where we are sitting shoulder to shoulder in defiance of the 4-feet separation that we need. You’re all the elected members of this house. We are depending on you all in this House to move us forward, and I think that we have got to set the example by making sure that we follow the science of social distancing. I’m sure that we’re all riveted on televisions, watching the international news, and the mode of transmission of the COVID-19 is very clear. For every person that is infected, they infect 3 to 5 persons. Those 5 persons infect another [3-5], and so, there is the multiplier effect. So when we - in Belize, like other nations, when we receive our first news of confirmation, it will not be 1 person. It will be, probably, between 10 and 15 persons, inundating our health system and our health services. And that’s the truth. And if you watch the international news you’ll see. Our first-world countries, they are having a hard time keeping up with the supplies, pharmaceuticals. Health professionals are becoming infected."

"We have to keep in mind that our health system; we have only 1,626 health workers. You can probably add another 58 if you add dentists. Of that number, you have possibly about 800 nurses. You have perhaps 300 or so doctors, and so on. How are we going to help our people? Apart from that, we have our front-line people, our customs, our police, our immigration. How are we going to - what are we saying? What systems are we putting in place? So, this morning, I brought my tape measure to make a point. You got to take care of ourselves."

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