So, as we said, over a thousand confirmed cases, and - as of Saturday - 13 deaths. The latest COVID-19 death was a Belize City woman in her 50's, the mother of a City Council employee.
Her death follows an enforced shutdown of the department where her son worked. This morning his boss, City councilor Allan Pollard, took us through the worst of the last two weeks for a stark reminder of the immediacy and proximity the global pandemic - which struck close to his home:
13 days ago the Belize City Council shut down the traffic department for sanitization. That was because a traffic warden, among others, tested positive for the Coronavirus and on Saturday his mother - who was in her 50's - succumbed to complications caused by Covid-19.
She'd spent Spent 2 weeks at the K.H.M.H and was eventually intubated. She becomes the 13th Belizean to die from the virus.
Alan Pollard, Councillor
"It definitely was nerve-wracking, to say the least, we had officers who weren't sure if they had come in contact or if you know they were in danger of any sort right and part of the staff you could see that people were pretty anxious myself included in terms of what the outcome could be because the last thing we would want is to experience a spread in the department amongst staff but after that, we did sanitize thoroughly, lock down the department as soon as we could and ensured that we monitored staff in terms of symptoms, sicknesses and anything like that and made sure that we had that smooth transition after closing down so we could get back to the business of traffic as soon as possible for the residents."
"He contracted the virus of course and he wasn't the only person in his family and that led to the unfortunate death of his mother. So it's definitely a tough thing to go through and to experience the family go through this pain, no. Our officer 02:46 Mr. James 02:47, he's recovering and on his way to full recovery and I can only imagine what he is going through at this moment, having to deal with this virus and then the passing of your mother. It's very unfortunate and tragic."
But for the City councillor in charge of the traffic who knows the family of the deceased, it's an immeasurable loss.
Alan Pollard, Councillor
"On behalf of myself, my family and Belize City council and the traffic department, we do wish him a full speedy recovery and send our condolences to the family, to the James family."
"She's somebody who is a loving mother, great neighbour, great family friend, great community, always in the community, always ready to assist with anything, for anybody and it's very, very, very sudden and unfortunate. I'm still in disbelief, this is somebody who I grew up watching from very young, there's never a time where I could go across to their yard and ask for something and she doesn't deliver. So that's something very difficult that my family has to deal with."
And for the traffic department which reopened last week Monday, it's a reality check that's forced them to proceed with extreme caution.
Alan Pollard, Councillor
"My advice would be to one take this thing seriously, I mean a lot of Belizeans still aren't, I don't know they're still lax in their measures in terms of wearing their mask properly sanitizing washing their hands and being in crowds, it's definitely, it's definitely something now to see the frequent reports and the deaths coming in exponentially, it's definitely time as Belizeans that we take this thing seriously."
"While we may feel that, especially younger folks that our bodies might handle the virus, we are putting our elders at risk, our mothers, our aunts, grandparents and we have to think that way we can't just think about ourselves because the spreading of the virus is the issue not you personally contracting it but spreading it to other people who may be vulnerable in this time."
And this morning Pollard who sat at the helm of his department's fumigation and sanitizing efforts said that when it comes to COVID-19 no one is safe.
Alan Pollard, Councillor
"I want to extend extreme caution to everybody, all workers, all staff members to I mean we know you have to work, I know it's business as usual right now, there's no lockdown but you have to protect yourself and your families because you never know when this thing is coming to knock at your door and nobody is exempted from it. It's time that we started to think of it that way."
We note that three of the last four COVID-19 deaths have been women.
