So, as you heard, Wicab had co-morbidities, or what you might call pre-existing conditions which complicated his COVID condition.
And his infection and death also complicates matters for the Poultry Industry where his place of employment, Caribbean Chicken has been forced to close down for at least three days to conduct a contact tracing exercise. Cowo told us more:
Armando Cowo, Belize Poultry Association
"So there's a big concern right now within the industry and within the structure of Caribbean company itself. So what we have done right now is following Ministry of Health guidelines, we're sanitizing the plant and we're sanitizing the headquarters of the company because that's in right in the same compound where the plant is and that has been closed and to further contain what we have done is to close all the Caribbean Chicken outlets countrywide. So of course this would affect the customer."
"How will this affect the current supply and demand that is putting pressure on the industry, to be frank with you, I don't know, one we don't know how many people maybe this gentleman infected or which infected him if he got it at the plant, we don't know, we don't know if he got it in the community where he lives in San Felipe so there are many unknowns at this moment."
Cherisse Halsall:
"All this with already a chicken shortage at hand, Yes already a chicken shortage at hand, and now we have this. It was a shock to us because we have been trying as best as possible to satisfy the current demand and so now we will be having at least a timeframe for the supply position right now because after the sanitization and after the contact tracing then the Ministry will advise us how to proceed."
Armando Cowo, Belize Poultry Association
"Ministry of health protocol dictates that if you have a case whether it happened on the job or not on the job we don't know yet but if you have a case and the person works for you then the best approach is to sanitize shut down for a couple of days and give ministry time to do their contact tracing and see if it has spread within or if it has not if it has spread within how many people or is there another one at this point I don't know."
Caribbean chicken put out a press release this evening saying, quote, "We are currently working with the Ministry Of Health to support their contact tracing…we would like to hereby inform the General Public that it has become necessary for our processing plant, headquarters and retail outlets country wide to be closed on Monday August24,2020. This closure is to accommodate the sanitization of our facilities in BlueCreek, for the protection and safety of our plant workers and staff...." End quote.
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