And while the positivity rate seems to be trending down - what is also sharply down is the number of active cases.
As we told you yesterday, Belize is now down to only 794 active cases a major decrease from just last month where active cases surpassed 2000.
And there are fewer active cases, because the policy for declaring a person COVID free no longer depends on a negative test - it simply requires the passage of time.
Dr. Diaz explained the standard for a clinical discharge:
Melissa Diaz - Acting DHS "Back in March when we had our first outbreak, the Ministry of Health had continued to ask for two consecutive negative tests, now and I had gone through a lot of this morning, when we look at how we're determining whether somebody has recovered we have gone to the route of saying clinical recovery is acceptable for us. So it's important for me to explain that the memo that went out, went out to the regional management teams so it's for the doctors and nurses to look at, it wasn't for the general public, so the memo basically gave guidance as to how a doctor would determine who would be discharged. So, the clinical discharge comes with certain categories, so a person who is COVID positive and in isolation but A-symptomatic at day 14 go to the flu clinic, see a flu doctor and that doctor then gives a clearance letter if they remain well. So it's not that day 14 comes and no I've recovered, no, you've got to get a clinical assessment, you have to ensure that you've had at least 72 hours so three consecutive days with no fever, no shortness of breath, no chest pains, no loss of smell and taste. So other things come with the decision to determine whether someone is clinically recovered."
