And, another possible COVID trouble area being looked at is water taxis coming off San Pedro. As we showed you yesterday, the lines into the water ferries did not show adequate social distance. And, today, a picture circulated of those sitting on a ferry, shows that all seating was full, apparently above capacity.
We asked the Security Minister about it today:
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte - Attorney General
"A water taxi leaving from any terminal within the country, then clearly that's more than seating capacity. The busses, planes and water taxis are the exception to the 6 feet rule. We accept that for it to be feasible for these vessels to be running they have to at least be able to full their capacity, so they are allowed to be less than 6 feet from each other but seating capacity only and everybody must wear a mask and for the length of the journey and at all times keep on that mask. So indeed we have to make sure that the boats are not overrun, that it's only the seating capacity that's being occupied and then they will be okay."
"You have to expect that when you go from something not happening at all to it finally being able to run again, you will have these overruns and over excitement and everybody wants to get out there now and everybody wants to do something. That is expected. However, we have to enforce it. The difficulty is that we really don't have unlimited police men, soldiers and coast guard people. We really have to depend to a large extent on the sense and sensibility of the Belizean people. You have to work with the law enforcement people, so the police can't be everywhere, but simply because the police is not somewhere it's not an excuse for you to thief chance and do something, because our lives are at risk. This is not a simple game, it is a zero game, you could live or die."
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