7 News Belize

Some Repatriates Trying To Slip Quarantine
posted (June 9, 2020)
The Health authorities are also noticing a trend from repatriating Belizeans who are coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why they shouldn't be subjected to mandatory quarantine in a hotel. According to Dr. Manzanero, the returning Belizeans keep trying to convince the front-line personnel that quarantine in their homes would be best because of some medical condition or another. And that's party because quarantine is EXPENSIVE! About $110 - to $120 Belize dollars a night for two weeks.

But, cost notwithstanding, he said today that they would have to provide strong evidence to support this request of being quarantined at their homes instead:

Dr. Marvin Manzanero - Director of Health Services
"We are asking at least from the Ministry of Health standpoint that when you cite the medical condition and that being the reason why you should fee; you should be quarantine at home and not in a hotel you will have to provide medical evidence for that, because we are noticing that the first list that we got from people wanted to come from the US, almost everybody is citing some medical condition as to the reason why they can't go and quarantine in a hotel. People are saying I'm diabetic I can't go on quarantine in a hotel, I have high blood pressure I can't go and quarantine in a hotel. That alone is not going to be criteria for you to be isolated or ask to be quarantine at home. You will have to show that you are acutely ill, that was seeking medical condition outside of Belize and then became ill or are still recovering from whatever you went to do outside of Belize and that would be a condition where we would consider placing you on quarantine at home, because it's close to 600 Belizeans. If we start allowing everybody to go quarantine home, that becomes a nightmare in terms of us tracking people across the country versus being quarantine in a set place such as a hotel where you can set up all the mechanisms to have a better control of what's happening, not that we want to control persons, but I hope that now you can appreciate why special conditions are required for that."

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