The Senate met in Belmopan today for business but that State of the Emergency extension by an additional 14 days was high on the agenda. Now, that the bill has passed, the communities of Guinea Grass, Shipyard, Santa Marta, and San Pedro will remain in lockdown for an additional 2 weeks. Additionally, the rest of the country will have to continue abiding by the weekday and weekend curfews for that same period.
After the Leader of Government Business, Godwin Hulse, presented the bill for the Senate to consider, the NGO Senator expressed the support of his constituents for this decision. Here's what he had to say to his colleagues:
Senator Osmany Salas, NGO Community
"We are in a very bad state. Just on the 31st July there were 49 cases in the country. 15 days later we were at 452 and 3 days after that 101 more. So in the span of 18 days there was over 1000% increase in cases. A factor of 10.5. The last time I saw, I compared us to the region we were at number 4. We could very quickly get up to 3 and maybe even 2. I don't think we could ever surpass Haiti, I hope not. We are at number 4 and that is extremely bad, so up to the end of July and in reference to the tourism industry we were still able to say that moving forward we could refer to Belize as a safer haven compared to other places. I regret to say that now we are in such a bad state that we cannot make that claim anymore and this is what I hope the Belizeans realized that the more that we insist in not abiding by the safety protocols the greater the risk to our nation. The harder things get. The longer it will take to get ourselves out of this hole that Covid has carved out for our country. More than ever now we need to work towards a national unified efforts, national unity."
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