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Tonight, Belize has joined the rest of the world: the Ministry of Health has confirmed the presence of COVID-19.

Up until last night, Belize had been among the last five counties in the world which had not seen a positive test.

Well, last night, a positive was confirmed - and the Prime Minister held a special press conference this morning to make the announcement:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"I have the very unpleasant duty of announcing this morning that we have our first confirmed case of a Belizean citizen testing positive for COVID-19.

The positive test result came in last night at 11:00 from San Pedro. The patient, a 38 year old female who lives in San Pedro:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow
"The person is a Belizean citizen but goes back and forth between our country and the US, came in to Belize from Los Angeles on Thursday as I understand it, had already started feeling unwell and so went straight into self-isolation."

Dr. Marvin Manzanero - Director of Health Services
"She has been in self isolation - she does not require at this point in time hospitalisation - she is self-isolated at home - her family members who have been in contact and screened and we do mapping exercise in terms of who she ..before she actually got to San Pedro. My understanding is that she did go into immediate self-isolation."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow
"It does seems as though there was very minimal contact with anyone except for the physician that attended the person at the private clinic she visited, and that physician was properly protected. Point being that we are hopeful that the incidents of transmission would pretty much be non-existent.

Manzanero says they will do contact tracing from the time the plane landed in Belize:

Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"We have to look at the plane manifest . We have checked she was not sneezing and coughing, that minimises droplets all over the place, if you will, dry cough and shortness of breath, seem to be the preliminary symptoms and fever, that's when she was swabbed."

Jules Vasquez
"So two questions immediately arise, did the doctor who is examined her, we've been reliably informed that that the doctor did not have protective gear."

Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"That is not so, we have actually consulted with the doctor, he says he ensured that he took all the necessary precautions in this regard."

Now, government is asking all on the island to do what some may not want to do:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow
"We're asking San Pedranos to, as it were, shelter in place. We know that there are people - today is the last day for the international flights - and we know that there are people who are coming in form that island to try and actually get out of the country. So, we're not enforcing any kind of quarantine with respect to the island. But we're asking San Pedranos not to come to the mainland, except it is absolutely essential and we're asking islanders not to go to San Pedro unless it is absolutely essential. We will give some thought to whether or not we need to impose a quarantine."

But, by 2:00 PM, that decision was made, and government announced a 72 hour state of emergency for Ambergris Caye.