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Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"Yes I was in full support of opening up the airport on July 1st but at that time we did not have the crisis in the US that we have today and back then when I was talking about opening of the airport I said let us plan to open up properly, let us put all the protocols in place because I agree we can't stay locked up forever. So we felt that back then when… (Interruption from another member of the House)"

"Hold on man, relax man. That's why they no want make you Prime Minister, that is why they keep you sitting there. That is why sit down there man. To make my point very clear, I was in favor of opening, I prepared a paper because I thought."

Speaker of the House:
"Honorable ministers please we need some…quiet."

Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"Because I thought then as I believe now that it was the right thing to do. Why are we concentrating only on bringing Americans into this country when right now we have a massive problem with COVID-19 in the US. We have countries like the Bahamas, I think even Barbados that have closed their doors from allowing American tourists to come into their country. What the honorable member from Caribbean shores was saying and I agree with him, that we should be looking areas, other places bring people from Canada, bring from Europe."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minster of Belize
"Sir I am happy that you conceded squarely, that you were pushing for the international airport be open on the 1st July. If we had done that, where on earth would we be now. You talk about what is happening in the US, it had been happening from then, it got worse, if we had re-opened, if re-opening in these circumstances would be such a colossal error how much more of an error would it not have been if we had opened on July 1st. And I repeat sir, you argued for that, you pressed for that, we had to stand you down on the clear basis that we cannot open July 1st because we could not have been ready for July 1st. That is why as the minster said there are some people complaining but we made it clear, if you are not prepared to subject yourself to the requirements that we are enshrining in law, don't come. We said it over and over, there I no way we are going to re-open unless we have in place this raft of measure that can protect the immigration personnel ,the customs personnel, all the people at the airport and that can protect as much as possible the Belizean public. You Mr. Leader of the opposition, you have said that we have got to learn to live with COVID-19, am I misquoting you sir, and you have said it over and over and over, well that it what this is about, trying to live with COVID-19 but we don't want to pull back but if we have to, we will! Look, madam speaker part of the problem is as various of those who intervened have been obliged to confess, we are worrying about the risks that the return of tourists will pose but we don't have to go that far look at how absolutely undisciplined, look at how absolutely heedless and oblivious our own people are to what we have put in place locally before you talk about the arrival of tourists, half of the people who have gotten COVID-19 in this country, they have gotten it why? Because of either being border jumpers themselves or mingling with border jumpers. We have seen the images on facebook where they are crammed cheek by jowl in the water taxis, nobody wearing a mask, the way we are behaving, we don't have to worry about tourists coming in to infect us we are doing it to ourselves."