Tonight, Belize's COVID 19 patient #7 is at the isolation unit of the KHMH, which is reserved for critical care COVID 19 patients. He was transferred from Belmopan's Western Regional Hospital last night - and his admission to the KHMH clearly indicates that he needs a higher level of care.
But, he is not on a ventilator. This afternoon on "Ask the Experts," The Director of Health Services gave a briefing on patient 7's condition. He started with patient #6, another San Ignacio resident who is at home with no major symptoms. Unlike patient 7, he has a known connection to patient #4. The DHS says they found him through contact tracing:
Dr. Marvin Manzanero - Director of Health Services
"We also did further swabbing of secondary contacts or not so immediate contacts we had then as Patient #4 and those tests were run on Sunday. That's how we manage to identify Patient #6 who we have established a link between Patient #6 and Patient #4, but we still have not been able to ascertain where or who the first case was in that regard. Patient #7 is a patient we swabbed because we also said that we are going to be swabbing people who were having respiratory conditions inside hospital facility, so this Patient #7 is a patient who has been diagnosed with community acquired pneumonia initially manage in San Ignacio and as per our refer protocol he was subsequently referred to the Western Regional Hospital which is where he was swabbed where the diagnosis was made and he was sent on to Karl Heusner (hospital) yesterday in case he would have required any ventilation support. However, the last note I got is that he was not on a mechanical ventilation, he was under supplementary oxygen. I just got a note from CEO of Karl Heusner, the patient is in point of fact improving. His vitals are stable and he has improved from yesterday to today and he is only on nasal oxygen and was chatting with his relatives via phone, because you know no visits are allowed."
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