Turning now to health news….there was a scare on Saturday when it was reported that 21 cases of COVID 19 had been detected at the Princess Casino.
The good news is that only 5 of those who tested positive have symptoms, and only 1 has moderate symptoms - so, there's nothing serious, not so far at least.
Today we spoke with the Deputy Regional Manager for the Central Health Region who told us it all started in the staff lunchroom at the Casino:
Princess Casino remained closed today as health teams continued to do testing inside:
Dr. Melissa Diaz, Deputy Mgr. - Central Health Region
"Our team is there right now at Princess testing other staff members, the taxis, security - other people who don't necessarily work inside the casino and will get an update of that later on today."
This is after Casino staff started showing up with COVID at clinics last week:
Dr. Melissa Diaz, Deputy Mgr. - Central Health Region
"Approximately 3-4 days ago we have one person who tested positive and who works at Princess Hotel. So we had started the communication with the hotel and got prepared to go in to do some routine surveillance. But on Saturday morning someone presented to one of our health facilities and tested positive on rapid test, so immediately we decided that okay we are going to put things into gear. Our team went in and we were able to swab initially at that on Saturday 75 persons and of the 75 persons there that's when we picked up 19 positive cases."
Five of them are symptomatic - and unlike most of the staff, those symptomatic persons did not get vaccinated:
Dr. Melissa Diaz, Deputy Mgr. - Central Health Region
"5 symptomatic persons, 4 with very mild symptoms and 1 with mild to moderate symptoms and neither of these people were vaccinated. The persons who were vaccinated at this point and it's still very early in our investigation and very early in the transmission of the virus, but at this point these persons have remained asymptomatic. On Sunday we did 50 more persons and of those 50 persons, 8 others were employed at Princess Casino, we picked up 2 further positives from Princess Casino."
"The important thing to control a cluster like this is to detect these cases early to isolate and to treat early."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
'Some people may come from homes where 9 or 10 people live in close proximity in one home, so that point number and point number two - so what is the level of exposure of their family even if perhaps they have been vaccinated, but perhaps their family has not?"
Dr. Melissa Diaz
"Once we picked up the cases we isolated who did not have the capacity to isolate properly at home, we isolated them at a hotel and the other persons, we've been able to check at their location where they are and we've literally called every single person on the list and we've seen all of them and at this point everyone is fully isolated."
And while testing and contact tracing continues, there are lessons for all workplaces according to Diaz:
Reporter
'Would you be able to say at this point who started it?"
Dr. Melissa Diaz
"We do feel that we know who the index case is - the investigation has really revealed that the processes and the procedures that were put in place to ensure that the casino open as safe as possible have been followed on the floor of the casino, but west areas are areas that are more compromised, so we've already made changes to this, the management is fully cooperative and these changes will occur at all the casinos. The investigation has proven that more than likely the transmission occur in a staff room, where the employees go to take breaks and after speaking and investigating and doing the history of all the employees who tested positive, this was the common area that they all were, so we are asking any employer for big business or areas that have communal restrooms or communal staff rooms or lounge rooms, to ensure that persons take break at separate times, lunch breaks and even a 15 minute coffee break etc., not to be done in a cluster or a group."
So, should past patrons be concerned?:
Dr. Melissa Diaz
"We're asking patrons if you a regular patron of the casino you can come and get tested, especially if you do have any flu-like or any symptoms of cold, cough - please come in and get screened. It will also help us in investigation and confirm what we feel that the transmission occurred in the staff areas."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Doctor, should casinos remain open at this? I know it's very important economically for these persons, but is the public healthcare risk too great?"
Dr. Melissa Diaz
"The easiest way to control virus that spread by droplets and the way this virus is spread is to shutdown everything. That's why we stress the public health measures to ensure that you keep your mask on over your nose and mouth, you don't take breaks together, you ensure that you do your hand washing, and the casino itself have protocols when somebody is playing on certain games, there are strict protocols in place. There is no drinking around the machines, no smoking around the machines."
For the community which is acting like its COIVD free, this could be a useful wake up call:
Dr. Melissa Diaz
"Absolutely, covid is here. Every single day we get cases and it's not the first cluster in the Belize District. We've been dealing with smaller clusters from businesses as well."
We'll keep following the numbers coming out of this cluster.
The neighbouring casino, the Tropicana today put out a release saying that all its staff members have tested negative for COVID 19 - which Diaz confirmed.
