There is community spread of COVID 19 on San Pedro - and tonight, the
overall national picture is worsening, and worrying. There are 53
active cases, and 24 more could be added tonight. Two persons are
currently hospitalised. The cases are spread across San Pedro, Orange
Walk, Corozal, and as of last night, Belmopan has recorded its first
case.
The consequence of all this is that San Pedro is going to lock down at
midnight tonight - as will the villages of Santa Marta, Guinea Grass
and Shipyard in the Orange Walk District. Then, there will be another
general, more relaxed state of emergency and curfew for the entire
country.
So, there's a whole lot to detail tonight and we start with the numbers
- here's how Dr. Marvin Manzanero ran them down in a two-hour press
conference that finished half an hour ago
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services
"We did manage to confirm a total of 14 cases when the final lab process
went through. The breakdown is as follows, out of the 14 cases, one person
is linked to the hospitalized case in Northern Regional Hospital. That is
an active cluster in the village of Santa Marta. The person identified
lives in Belmopan. There are 2 persons linked to the case identified in San
Pedro on Tuesday, this is a second cluster which is not related to the
initial case which was identified on Sunday. So, we're talking about
cluster number 2 in San Pedro, we found 2 other cases, and this is tied to
a church in San Pedro for which contact tracing started earlier in the week
and we anticipate further samples to be processed later today. 10 cases are
linked to the case identified in San Pedro on Sunday, some samples are
still pending and those are coming out in the next couple of minutes and
one other case in San Pedro that is not linked to the 2 active clusters in
San Pedro. So, contact tracing for this other case is ongoing. So based on
the above, the epidemiology unit is now able to confirm that there is
community transmission in the town of San Pedro and for now, other than the
clusters that we're looking for on Sunday, we're also following an active
cluster for those that are related to a specific church in San Pedro where
we had been told approximately between 20 to 30 persons could be having
signs and symptoms. We are also looking for further potential sources of
spread on the island and for now, we are thinking that the key line item
that connects the San Pedro clusters to the mainland, may have originated
in Orange Walk. We are following the active cluster out of Santa Marta, as
now there is a case in Belmopan, contact tracing for that case in Belmopan
is ongoing. The preliminary data we have for today is that there might be
by the end of today, 23 more active cases, 19 of those seems to be in San
Pedro, 2 in Orange Walk and 2 in Belize City but they seem to be from the
repatriation process, so by the end of today we might be confirming 23 more
cases."
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