| As you heard at the top of the news - borders are opening on New Year's Day. And, as we tell you every night, the curfew has been significantly relaxed.
And, all this happens just as the Omicron strain of the COVID virus is making its way around the world, and once again driving up infection rates.
And though COVID numbers are down, the KHMH is girding itself for what could be the next wave - with those ventilators we spoke about in the last segment.
But the hospital hopes it won't have to use those ventilators, especially after the Christmas season when lots of gathering and drinking will be happening. We asked him about the visibly lax enforcement when it comes to the COVID regulations. But the ComPol said that fingers shouldn't be pointed at the cops, but rather those who insist on breaking the regulations.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"The whole issue of the COVID-19 pandemic is one that every Belizean should take seriously. Every Belizean should take it upon him or herself to ensure that we do the right thing. We see the numbers go up and everybody shout the ministry of health, the minister of health, the police, the government, this and that. But the people who are actually causing the numbers to go up are never blamed. It is the behavior of us the people that cause the number to go up. When we have people behaving irresponsibly, having parties here there and everywhere, having social events here there and everywhere, these are the things that take the numbers up. Now we are seeing the numbers are going down again so people are going to feel relaxed, saying "oh yeah the numbers are going down again so I can go drink now I can go this and go that". No the numbers are going down; we must continue doing what we are doing to keep the numbers down. At the end of the day I believe we have lost too much of our people to COVID-19. We can't blame nobody but ourselves because we go party because we young and we think that if we catch the virus we won't die. We go party, we catch it, we take it home to our grandmother or grandfather and they die. That is irresponsible behavior and at the end of the day there is nobody to blame but the persons who are out there behaving irresponsibly and taking the virus to those who are vulnerable and killing them. So I want to appeal to our people, that as we enter this biblical season, please remember that we are not out of the way as where COVID-19 is concerned. Yes, the police will be out there in full force to enforce the regulations but the police cannot be everywhere to monitor everyone's behavior. They have a population of 400,000+ people and we have just over 2,000 police officers. We cannot mind everyone, we expect that each person will take it upon themselves and act responsibility. Do not do things that you know the regulation forbids you to do because doing so will put your life and the lives of others at risk."
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