280 Belizeans have died from COVID-19. But behind the numbers, they're real people facing real grief and, often, tragedy.
One such story is that of Ethel Garcia of Double Head Cabbage, a COVID widow who cared for three positive family members but lost her husband to the virus.
Cherisse Halsall travelled to Ethel's village this morning and she shared her story of survival and enduring sorrow.
This is Ethel Garcia's bedroom. It's a place that the Double head Cabbage resident spent a lot of time in, in 2020. She was forced to isolate here when most of her family contracted COVID.
Ethel Garcia - Widow "It was very scary. At first, we thought it was nothing just the flu and then when we got tested, we were like in Limbo, everybody was in Limbo, everybody was in limbo. When we got the result we all cried because they were saying two people had it and two were negative because we had a little girl here with us too and I was like please god don't let it be me and so when they read us the result everybody cried."
Ethel was extremely wary of the disease because she has underlying conditions and once it was in the house, she says she had to take extreme precautions.
Ethel Garcia "The first test, it was two people that were positive my daughter-in-law and my husband, then the second test my son came out positive, that is when I said I need to take more precaution with myself so I don't get it and then the third test he came back positive, so now it's three of them. I was the only one, it was like crazy because I had to stay in that room to the back there. I can't come out when they are here, if I go to the bathroom, I have to be sanitizing everything, I have to be to coming out a day, it was hard and mentally it took a toll on me. I was the one doing the cooking, I was the one cleaning, I was the one doing everything, it was rough. It's not an easy thing to see your family struggling because sometimes my daughter in law would tell me: "I can't breathe Ms. Ethel, I can't breathe."
But while the young people in the house suffered through their symptoms COVID would ultimately claim the life of Ethel's 65-year-old husband Rydell Anthony, He too had underlying conditions both high blood pressure and diabetes.
Ethel Garcia "Our last test was on a Thursday that was the 7th of October, so while we were waiting for that test, we went for the test on Wednesday and then on Thursday he was sleeping a lot but he wasn't complaining of any pain or anything like that. Then Friday we noticed that he was still not sleeping a lot, we decide that we are going to take him to the hospital and that's when we went and then because we were waiting for his result and we didn't got his result, they had to put him in the COVID ward. The Monday morning, Monday was a holiday I remember that clearly, we went to healthcare partners to get the cat scan done and when we got that that's when we realized that he had multiple blood clots on the brain and he had a lot of fluid in both lungs."
His passing shortly after that diagnosis was a shock, something that as the new year begins Ethel is still trying to grapple with.
Ethel Garcia "He was a jovial person, he likes to play Dominoes. He was the captain of the cricket team, excellence cricket team, he was always a mentor to our youth around here, and he has a lot, a lot, of friends."
But those friends couldn't attend his funeral. Ethel says that between social distancing regulations and the stigma of the disease, her family was left quite isolated at a moment when they were in need of moral support.
And at one point, with her son and daughter-in-law still positive, she faced the possibility of having to bury her husband on her own. Luckily that wasn't the case:
Ethel Garcia "We were allowed to get the body because he didn't die from Covid when he died he was negative, so they gave us the body we left the body in the morgue for one whole week for his family to come from America and there were still some precautions because we couldn't touch the body because there was a glass covering but we were able to have the body."
Today Ethel still marvels at the fact that she managed to evade the virus but she credits it to her home remedies.
Ethel Garcia "Maybe I'm on this earth for a reason because I have underlying conditions, I was in this house, 3 people were positive and I was not, so I think it`s my immune system because I have high blood pressure, I'm always drinking bitters and stuff like that, so I think that was one of the stuff that really helped me from not getting the virus."
Ethel's husband received a negative test prior to his death. but while he didn't die of an active COVID infection, he did die of long-term complications caused by the disease.
