So, as the PM says, the medical tracing starts with the medical professionals who examined this 55 year old male both in san Ignacio - at a private clinic, and in Belmopan at the western Regional.
But, it also spreads out into the community - the patient is known as a socially active man - and it extends to Belize City - where he worked at the City Council, which has 460 employees.
This evening on Ask The Experts Dr. Manzanero outlined the large footprint of contacts patient 4 had when he was asymptomatic:..
Dr. Marvin Manzanero - Director of Health Services
"I had mentioned earlier that he took private facilities before he arrived on Tuesday evening at the Western Regional Hospital. He was only seen by one doctor and slight interaction with a nurse and in the other private facility with 2 doctors. Those 4 health staff are now obviously in isolation. One of the doctors initially had been off a shift as of Sunday so he has not been interacting with anybody since then. All these doctors are asymptomatic and they would seem to have minimal contact in terms of potential exposure, but they still have been swabbed. From that initial mapping in the Cayo area there are immediate contacts in the same household. Those have been swabbed and there are at least 20 swabs that are taken from the Cayo area and the people who he would have interacted with at the regional hospital. We are going to do samples later on today. Central health region is doing a mapping exercise in Belize City, because that's where his workplace is and that seems to be the like that we have for him right now. It would be through his workplace and doesn't seem to have a strong positive history from contacts he has in the Cayo area. Our mapping exercise is not going to be able to tell us right now whether we have him as a community acquired transmission, but it seems that the link is going to be from his workplace in Belize City."
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