Turning back now to news about the coronavirus, the Belize City Council's Traffic Department was temporarily shuttered today because one of the Department's employees tested positive for COVID-19.
A press release from City Hall says that they received official confirmation this morning, and since then, they've been working with the Ministry of Health to provide support for the contact tracing process relating to this employee. At this time, the Council does not think that the worker became infected at the workplace, or while on the job. But, they are taking precautions by asking the staff members who came into close contact with the infected employee to go into quarantine for a two-week period. Also, the Traffic Department office was closed down with immediate effect, and the next step is a full sanitization process.
While the Traffic Department's Office is closed, traffic services will be offered remotely, and payments will be processed through the cashier at City Hall.
This evening, we spoke via a zoom teleconference with Allan Pollard, the City Councillor with responsibility for Traffic, Public Relations, and Special Events. He told us that since the Council has already lost one employee, Hubert Pipersburgh, to the coronavirus, they are proceeding with extra caution to protect the staff and the general public. Here's that conversation:
Allan Pollard, City Councillor, Traffic
"We got the confirmation this morning that one of our officers tested positive and because of that we had to do a lockdown to the public and get the place sanitized of course to be on the safe side not put any employee or resident in a position to catch the virus. We are currently doing online renewals for drivers license and other services and also all our payments that you need to make in terms of traffic can be done at city hall right now. The department is still running, it's still operating. However, the core functions that require human interaction for example that payment process - all of that has been migrated over to city hall. So it's business as usual if you want to get those kinds of services done. In terms of written tests, if you are schedule to do a written driving test or something like that - that had to take place at the department. So if there is a situation like that then that's the only reason you won't be able to do that kind of service."
"As far as his case goes, we don't have any idea where exactly how he contracted it or from whom, but from all indications we don't believe it's from work or on the job site. So we will left that part up to the ministry. Of course if any information needs to come from us then we will be more than supportive with assisting the ministry with that information. In terms of the physical mapping of where he could contracted it or anything of that nature we have to left that up to the professionals. It's definitely stressful and I could tell you from my part personally and some of the sentiments from the other employees. You could imagine how frantic everybody is that it comes close to home, but I want to tell those who are employed that I think from my standpoint seeing the operations of how the department was operating and how responsible we were in terms of testing, the temperatures and making sure that we had the wash basins and making sure that each officer had on their masks properly I wouldn't want to add to their stress or anything like that. I would want to have them be comforted as to know that we as a department were responsible."
"In terms of his state right now I spoke to him today, I know him well and I know the family and he is in good spirit and he is holding up and he is also improving. There is 2 facts here that this virus isn't going away right now and we have to learn how to live with it. But we have to make sure that we are protecting ourselves and protecting those who we come into contact with everyday, because until there is a complete shutdown the business of the council and the residents, the city has to run like anywhere else until there is a lockdown and us at the council you could imagine how stressful we are. We lost an employee as a result of Covid, a very good friend of mine, so we have to take extra precautions and be extra careful and of course listen to the advice given by the professionals and do our part in ensuring that we don't contribute to any kind of community spread."
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