And while the entire nation joins the commissioner in his earnest hope that PC Ical is still alive - there is no such hope for two families whose loved ones have been lost to COVID.
Two more deaths, the 14th and 15th since March were registered today: it is a male in his 50's from Biscayne village, and a female in her 40's from San Pedro, who was a diabetic.
Today on Ask The Experts, Dr. Marvin Manzanero disclosed more:
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services
"We have had two deaths in the last 24 hours. One is in a female who had been intubated for a week at Karl Heusner, that patient had been referred one week ago from San Pedro to Karl Heusner and had been intubated through the weekend because of respiratory failure, that patient passed away earlier today after being there after one week. The other case is that in a male from Rural Belize district, he died shortly after arrival at KHMH on Tuesday September 1st. The person did not seem to have or wasn't reported to have any respiratory symptoms. The primary reason why he was taken to the hospital was general weakness, general malaise fatigue with loss of appetite. He died shortly after arriving at Karl Heusner. The protocol is that we would have tested him with a genexpert sample which we use for cases that may have or are highly suspect and are in the containment area or the transition area at Karl Heusner to determine quickly if they are a potential COVID19 case. The initial genexpert test had been negative but the protocol again calls that once it is negative we do a PCR test on that person and that result has come back positive for SARS- COVID2. So while in the death certificate it's not going to list COVID19 as a primary cause of death we do call it as an associated so it is placed somewhere in the death certificate and mind you we have had a couple of death certificates that have been done that we have had to go back and review to place a diagnosis in there."
