Tonight, law enforcement and health officials continue to look closely at the Village of Santa Cruz in the Stann Creek District. That's after an active cluster of 21 newly identified COVID infections have emerged from that community.
The Ministry of Health and Wellness reports that the first positive case was identified last Thursday. Health officials were conducting routine testing in the Maya King area, and that's when the principal of Santa Cruz Primary School tested positive.
2 of the principal's close contacts also tested positive that day, and so, the Ministry's surveillance team then moved to the village on the following day to conduct mass testing. That surveillance sweep led to the discovery of 18 more COVID-positive cases from a total sample size of 65.
So tonight, the authorities are trying to ensure that the spread of the virus does not widen. A community fair is being planned for June 10 to conduct mass swabbing and vaccination.
This morning, our colleagues from KREM News managed to speak via telephone with the Chairman of Santa Cruz Village. Here's what he had to say about the detection of this cluster of COVID cases, and the efforts to contain it:
Voice of: Vincent Scott, Chairman, Santa Cruz Village "The medical people from Dangriga came into the village to check somebody, just doing a follow up with the swab and then at the same time they explained to me that they checked 5 persons and from that 5, 3 were positive and that was on Thursday and then by Friday when they came back to do the contact tracing, by Friday it was already 18."
Reporter
"How are the cases linked? Is it that it started in a workplace, do you know?"
Voice of: Vincent Scott, Chairman, Santa Cruz Village
"From what I gather from the medical team was that the one person work in a store, so probably that's where maybe it spread so far."
Reporter
"Because there are other positive persons from that store, correct?"
Voice of: Vincent Scott, Chairman, Santa Cruz Village
"From the workplace, yes, they have other people that was positive, yes. We have some of the people in quarantine and I'm not hearing anything about severe symptoms at this point in time. What we did yesterday, I went around with the police and we are enforcing that wash hand basin and to everybody to use the mask and the 6 feet social distancing."
Reporter
"Do you think people are letting down their guard?"
Voice of: Vincent Scott, Chairman, Santa Cruz Village
"Like what I say because we have all that cases so fast, we are trying to figure out - because they are doing the contact tracing and if this is from one case - we are trying to figure it out right now. The quick time from one case jumped to 18 cases, it has everyone puzzled. Yesterday we had the cooperation from the whole community. Everybody, all the stores started one time and all of them already had everything in place, but some people were always letting down their guard because normally its only 1-2 cases in the village, so now with this 18 cases everybody is trying to do what they could do to stop this thing from getting worse."
Reporter
"Do you all have a situation that we are seeing for instance in Belize City where some nightclubs have actually started passing off as restaurants and then as it gets later into the night, they are still operating as a nightclub?"
Voice of: Vincent Scott, Chairman, Santa Cruz Village
"We heard some of that and we went around with the police, we spoke to all the people who have nightclubs and explained to them to please cooperate with us, if they are doing it, to stop doing it, because once the village gets close down then everybody will lose business and things are already hard."
Reporter
"What about big gatherings?"
Voice of: Vincent Scott, Chairman, Santa Cruz Village
"We don't have any big gatherings in the community. Everybody was following that protocol. Like what I say it was just one case and then it went to 3, then it jumped to 18 cases."
The Ministry of Health and Wellness has since released its full report on all the testing done from June 5th to the 7th.
Over those 3 days, a total of 1,705 tests were completed, and out of that batch, 38 new infections were identified. The Ministry clarifies that a total of 24 cases for the Stann Creek District came from that sweep of the Maya King area and Santa Cruz, which was completed on June 4th.
69 cases are currently under investigation, and 4 active hospitalizations for the virus, one active ICU admission, and 3 new recoveries.
