For the prison, it's just the sort of nightmare scenario that those 28 prison escapees may have feared when they made their decision to flee.
This morning I spoke to Kolbe Foundation C.E.O Virgilio Murillo via Zoom about the COVID troubles he's been having at the Prison:
The Belize Central Prison will remain under lockdown for another 14 days. It's a precautionary measure meant to contain the 135 cases detected thus far. And while the situation at the prison has caused public alarm it's only a symptom of the bigger problem, the widespread transmission outside prison walls.
Virgilio Murillo, C.E.O, Kolbe Foundation
"The community spread is so rampant it's gonna be difficult to keep it out of crowded facilities such as a prison so those are the facts of life. I also when I look at what has happened since we recorded our first case because our positivity rate right now that we're seeing is certainly proportional to the level of testing being done by the Ministry of Health. To put that into perspective we've done 600 tests thus far at the prison which is almost 50% of the inmate population and staff combined, 105 staff were tested of which six turned out to be positive for the COVID-19 virus which is roughly 5.7% so we seem to be doing very very well as it relates to staff."
Those 6 members of staff are believed to have contracted the disease within prison walls and are unrelated to the cases of their 4 colleagues who contracted it on the outside. But with both prisoners and staff exposed, mitigation has become the prison's priority.
Virgilio Murillo, C.E.O, Kolbe Foundation
"The ministry of health especially since the 27th, I will tell you have gotten fully engaged right now and trying to support the prison in every way possible to mitigate that spread. We have quarantine the prison once more for an additional 14 days and that literally means that the prisoners will be confined to their cells 24 hours around the clock until this thing subsides."
But Murillo cautions that all those measures could be for naught if attorneys don't start cooperating.
Virgilio Murillo, C.E.O, Kolbe Foundation
"I think they need to be reasonable and realistic and try to see how they could work things out for their prisoners. Having lawyers trying to work with the prison in getting hearings or bails are putting us in a little pickled position too because a lot of these people some of them might be going on bail and there is no way for the prison to test them, not even with a rapid test to see if they're not going out with the virus."
And while a good number of inmates are clearly pushing to get out on bail, what could be the state of mind of those who aren't able to manage it, trapped under 24-7 lockdown in an environment where infection seems inevitable?
Cherisse Halsall:
"Now, Sir in your experience do you feel that the measures that the ministry of health is putting in right now you know basic, quarantining washing of hands is enough to mitigate COVID in a facility where inmates are forced to live in such, correct me if I'm wrong but close quarters?"
Virgilio Murillo, C.E.O, Kolbe Foundation
"Well, that is not only by the Ministry of Health's standards that is by international standards because in prisons there is always the likelihood, let us look at our isolations for argument's sake. When new admissions come to the prison we have an isolation measure in place for them, and we are not getting these positive cases from these buildings at all so obviously the isolation works but one of the standards is to literally leave the prisoner's in there building where there's at least 50% of them infected with the virus because it's sort of birds of a feather type thing, they flock together, there's no way that you can infect me if I already have the virus type thing, so these international experts they know exactly how to do these things but what is certain right now is that after 14 days everybody really heals up once you stick to the protocols."
Murillo says the cases they are seeing are 95% Asymptomatic. It's a factor that has the prison in quite "a pickle." with cases hard to detect since no one is displaying any symptoms.
