A 25 year old police officer from Patchakan has died - and he has been posthumously confirmed to have had COVID 19.
PC 1918 Elsner Medina died last week after complications developed during a surgery..
This morning, Police Commissioner Chester Williams told our colleagues from Plus TV that the officer was on sick-leave for another health issue, and as a result, he was not a potential source of COVID infections for his police colleagues in the north:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"As a department we offer our sincere condolences to the late police constable who passed away over the weekend. He was test postmortem and prove positive for Covid-19. He worked in the Corozal area and it is a loss to us and even we as a department we are grieving with his family for his loss. With that said I want to again emphasize to people the need for us to comply with the regulations and we are seeing that a number of persons are going to the hospitals at a late stage of having contracted the virus. If it is that you believe you have the symptoms of the virus, please don't hesitate to go to the hospital and seek medical attention. Do not wait last minute."
"The officer in question was on sick leave from the end of September. So he was not on actual duty and the sick leave did not had to do with Covid, but rather an injury he sustained sometime last year and so there is no threat to the police officers with who he worked in Corozal. Nonetheless, we still remain vigilant in terms of our personnel. More and more of our officers are becoming positive with the virus and is it with that sprit I continue to ask the Belizean people to please work with us, because whenever people behave recklessly or irresponsibly the police have to come in contact with them and for the most part that is how our officers are getting infected, so protect yourselves and at the same time protect the police officers as well."
