But although there are no Belizeans on that flight, the the Ministry of Health is getting ready to ensure that when Belzieans do start arriving that they aren’t exposing the country to the coronavirus. They are also preparing to oversee the repatriation of Belizeans who have been stuck abroad for several weeks after the Government closed the borders.
At today’s edition of the Government’s Ask the Experts Webcast, members of the public asked the Director of Health Services to shared details about what their role in the process will look like. Here’s how he put it:
Dr. Russel Manzanero, Director of Epidemiology Unit
"With repatriations, I know yesterday in this sessions as well, CEO Burns had mentioned the different procedures and how it will be carried out but I believe in the end, the surveillance and the counter tracing and the management is indeed when health need to take charge and ensure that these measures are put in place. It is an entire process for the repatriation, there are many ministries that will be involved, there are still certain things, so nurse Perez is out there actually meeting with those teams to ensure these things are in place from our side in health to ensure that the teams know what to do when these individuals are entering in the country again."
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Service
"Can you please share what steps will be taken, what will be done from the MOH end as it relates to the responses and prevention for the first repatriation flight. Well, one of the conditions that we ask for is that, we needed a census, that’s one. We need to know when people are going to be coming in, the amount of people that going to be coming in, especially if it's going to be coming through the airport and even if it's not going to be through the airport, if it's going to come through the land border, we will ask that specific group or amount that decided to come on a specific day, comes at a specific day, specific time and we have all your data. So upon arrival you will be given a quick questionnaire, quick temperature check because we are going to assume that all of the people are asymptomatic. If they any sign or symptoms then, they will more than likely be swabbed there, they will still all proceed to the quarantine hotel because this is going to be a controlled and you will be there for 14 days. Our job as health, we will go and check up on you once a day or call you once a day to determine how you are doing. At day 14, we need to go and check, take a swab, if you are negative, you will be allowed to leave the quarantine facility. If you are positive, then that becomes your day one of 21 and leads to the next question that we have or if at any point in time before you get to day 14, you start developing any sign or symptom, you will be swabbed and if that is negative, then you continue your day 14, you have to be swabbed again before your let go but if you are positive at any point in time, that becomes day 1 and that is the difference between 21 to 14 days. 14 days are for people who are asymptomatic coming into the country and will screen you at day 14. We are saying 21 days and you will recall I had say 14 to 21 for those who are already positive or close contacts to any positive case, simply because the majority of our patience were not 0 converting, which means they were not negative at day 14 and that's why we went from 14 to 21 days."
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