Last night, we showed you the arrival of 33,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine at the PGIA. It's the first part of the allotment for Belize through the COVAX facility, and a portion of those vaccines will go to the frontline workers of the tourism sector, which is trying to rebound after the industry equivalent of a COVID induced cardiac arrest.
Yesterday, the Belize Tourism Board announced that the Ministry of Health and Wellness has decided that 8,000 doses of the vaccine should go to the tourism industry, and a survey of stakeholders says that about 87% want to be immunized.
This morning, representatives of the Belize Hotel Association collaborated with the Ministry of Health and Wellness to get an early start in the vaccination process for its members. They invited the media, as a sort of encouragement to those who may be a little iffy about the vaccine. Our news team attended, and Daniel Ortiz has that story:
This morning, members of the tourism sector's workforce showed up at the Biltmore Plaza Hotel to join the other Belizeans who got their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
They were greeted by the frontline workers from the Ministry of Health's Central Health Region, who sought to help them calm any lingering doubt that they made the right decision:
Emir Castaneda - Health Educator, Central Health Region "Now the needle is not a big deal, okay? It's a small needle. It's a - when I took it, I didn't even feel it."
At the end of the day, however, the decision to take the vaccine is a personal one, and that's why the President of the Hotel Association, the Tourism Ministry's CEO was among the first tourism stakeholders to accept the vaccine.
Ted Tejada - President, Belize Hotel Association "Right now, we know that there is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of fear among employees. Actually yesterday, I had about 5 or 10 employees who came to see me, and they wanted to know why they should be vaccinated. I am very happy to have done it. As the president of the Belize Hotel Association, we know that we have to be an example to our employees. I have done quite a bit of research, and I do understand that this is a necessary thing that each of us has to make that private decision."
Nicole Solano - CEO, Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Relations "I look at the science. I think that we have to be optimistic. We have to look at the bright side. We need to do what is safe so that we can recover tourism. And, to me, it was an opportunity that was something we have to do. So, yes there's a lot of fear, but we cannot make decisions based on fear."
And these tourism thinkers believe that an immunized tourism workforce could be a positive feature of Belize's tourism product that will speed up the sector's recovery.
Ted Tejada "We can start to see the rebounding of tourism, but we want to fast-forward that. We just want to put a push to it. And we know that our frontline, which is our employees are safe, vaccinated, this is going to go faster than we expect. This is a silent virus. This is a silent killer. You do not know of the individual who has the virus. It can be up to 10 days after. So, it is important that your body builds an immune defense against that virus because we don't know who we're interacting [with]. We here in our hotels, have to treat all our guests with hospitality, and we have to make sure that we treat them well enough that they want to come back to Belize. So, we don't want to show them fear. We don't want to show resistance to any type of guest who comes to any of our hotels. They have to feel welcomed."
Nicole Solano "Belize already is poised to receive the travellers who want to social distance and want to be in a destination that isn't crowded. So, our product already speaks for itself. Our product already is easy to market. If the people in our market and the tourists coming to Belize have been vaccinated, and in the tourism industry, we are also vaccinated, then we have a much safer environment. And that's very important for the opening of tourism."
