7 News Belize

The San Pedro Experience
posted (March 31, 2020)
San Pedro doesn't have any ventilator. But, right now what they have an abidance of is something we're all going to need in the next few weeks - and that is the experience of how to live within the confines of a state of emergency.

Indeed, as you heard at the top, tomorrow night when the clock strikes 12:00, Belize will enter a national state of emergency. It's the first since the national security crisis sparked by the rejection of Heads of Agreement in 1981. And if you, like the majority of Belizeans, were born after that date you might be wondering what a statewide lockdown is like.

San Pedro has been living with that since Monday, March 23rd. Islanders have now spent an entire week under state-sanctioned lockdown and life is far from what it once was. This afternoon we spoke to Dion Vansen of the San Pedro Sun via phone. He gave us an insight into what we can expect to wake up to on Thursday morning. Vansen says that while we'll be at home doing our part to stop the spread of COVID-19, our freedoms will be severely limited.

Dion Vansen, Reporter, San Pedro Sun
"So between 7:00 and 12:00 there is some activity on the island. Usually the stores they open at 7 and then some of them close at 10 and you do have others that stay open until midday that's when you will see people if they need to go to the grocery stores to get anything that they need they will go and form a line outside of the stores and wait their turn to go inside and do their shopping also you have one gas station, one gas station open so if people need gas you see people in their golf carts in their vehicles going to the gas station to put in gas."

"After 12 everything goes back to silent mode. Everything is closed, everybody is expected to be at home and then the streets get quiet again. You might see some police officers driving around town to make sure that nobody that's suppose to be outside is out unless you'd have to be an essential worker or something like that then yes but that's what's happening on the island right now that's what's been happening for the past 9 days or 8 days and a half."

Cherisse Halsall:
"Talk to me about Ambergris Stadium and the vandalism that went on there. Do you think that that's based on some of the frustrations that people have been feeling at this time?"

Dion Vansen
"It can be that, It can be the sense of you know being worried and also perhaps to get attention because at the moment everybody is in a way first to be on isolation and so this can create these kinds of behavior's I guess in trying to get some attention from the public, which is not the best actions because that can get you in trouble and that's what happened to these people that did that. They got into trouble. It happened in the night but of course, that's the time that everybody is supposed to be at home."

Cherisse Halsall:
"So would you say that that means that the island isn't being policed as effectively as it should be?"

Dion Vansen
"So far as long as I could see and understand I think they're doing a good job but you know you can't really be everywhere but so far things have been pretty much under control. They have been no acts of violence or anything like that because actually patrols do increase in the night so I would say this was an isolated incident."

"It's a different way of living because if you can't come out of your home because that is the quarantine instruction then you kind of miss all the things you used to do, you miss your freedom in the way of when you were able to be out there at your own call now you can't. You kind of have a sense of you need to appreciate that when life goes back to normal you won't take things for granted and you'll try to enjoy them as best as you can because at this moment you are limited, your freedom has been limited."

Two minors have been charged for the Ambergris stadium graffiti. One of them was offered $1000 bail. The other had been given a conditional discharge for a previous crime and broke that condition by re-offending. Both boys were taken back to the stadium and ordered to clean the wall. We also note that three parents of those minors have been charged with "breach of curfew conditions." and fined $500 dollars. Those fines must be paid before the 31st of March, 2021. Failure to do so would result in prison time.

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