So with a push for local tourism to start, when will foreign tourism be permitted. That means opening the airport and cruise. Ports to American visitors - and if you follow international news, you know that the US has recorded 1.3 million cases and almost eighty thousand deaths.
And that's why the PM said that Belize can't open until a rapid test for the coronavirus is widely available:
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"This domestic tourism push naturally raises the issue of our opening up to foreign tourism. We are clearly not there yet and my best guess, my personal best guess, is not before July."
"My own view is this. We must remember that the virus, in some countries, has a mortality rate that is as high as 12%. Before we reopen, we therefore must look at the trajectory of the virus in North America as a whole and the US in particular. After all, the US is our biggest tourism market, responsible for over 75% of our tourism flows. As long as the rates of infection in the US have not plateaued, we would best beware. Also, we hope for, though not necessarily wait upon, an effective treatment for those that become critically ill after contracting the virus. What of course could allow us to hurdle both the barriers I have just referred to is the availability of an effective rapid test. That latter seems to be getting closer and closer, hence my own reason for feeling that we could be good to go possibly by as early as July. The ability to immediately test tourists on arrival should be an open sesame. It is not a failsafe, but we clearly, as always, have to juggle saving lives with safeguarding the economy. A rapid test would permit us to let in all tourists that test negative upon arrival."
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