And, while the numbers are increasing in neighbouring countries, in terms of countries worldwide that have gone 27 days or more without detection of any positive cases, Belize joins just 12 other countries or territories on that list.
According to the World Health Organisation website, most of those countries or territories on this side of the world, like Dominica at 30 days without a case, Montserrat at 27 days, St Barth's at 41 days, Angulla at 37 days, are tiny islands. Belize and Surinam are the only countries on the American mainland with zero cases for 28 days or more.
Today, via ZOOM video conference we asked the Director of Health Service what this represents for Belize:
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"In the Americas there are only 2 countries on the mainland that are over 26 days, in our case over 28 days and thats Surinam and Belize. And then you have those 2 in Asia; Cambodia and Laos. All the rest are small islands. So what are your impressions of that list, the totality of that list and Belize's place on it?"
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director Of Health Service
"We did see on another world checker in terms of statistics that Surinam and Belize were perhaps the more similar situations because of mainland trying to be similar populations, if you will. The other Caribbean countries and the fact that they are islands, you would know where people are coming in from routinely. For us, we have to be mindful of the fact that we are in the midst of countries that are having souring numbers going up; Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico having increasing numbers. I think we have been able to do successful containments so far and I will say it because of good classic public health, all the contact tracing that happened initially. 7 weeks since we first reported our case and in 3 weeks, we had reported all the 18 cases that we manage to gather. I checked earlier today with the teams and we don't have any highly suspect case of Covid-19. Random testing is happening to a certain extent, because we are testing all the people that are coming in illegally, being caught at the borders and people who are having severe acute respiratory illnesses, but we are not seeing any highly suspect case for Covid-19. So, it does seem that we at least successfully contain so far."
The National Oversight Committee met today to discuss the next steps after this first 28 days. Cabinet will meet tomorrow to consider the suggestions, and we expect a statement from the Prime Minister very shortly to discuss the way ahead to further open the economy.
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