A third COVID wave is rearing its head in Belize - that's what the Ministry of Health is saying in response to the steadily rising Covid numbers.
So, effective Monday, they are increasing curfew hours countywide and closing down churches in select villages which have seen a rapid increase in infected persons.
This decision comes out of Cabinet's meeting yesterday. And while such a momentous shift in public health policy would usually warrant a press conference - the Minister of Health announced it ad-hoc when he was on a vaccination drive in the Orange Walk District today.
The Prime Minister granted us an interview on the decision and here's his explanation:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"That's certainly not an easy decision for us, because we have been putting a lot of efforts and a lot of resources both financial and human resources to be able to control the spread of covid. But I think that Belizeans after months of having almost zero infections of covid, started to get lax, they started to become reckless, started to forget and behave as covid had disappeared."
"Well, I wish we don't have a curfew, but the only way we can contain or one of the best ways to contain the spread is to try to keep people from moving as much as we can. Of course, we can't lock you up in the room. The next best bet is to have curfew hours and we notice that people become more reckless when they're drinking, when they are socializing, when they are partying and most of that happens at night."
"I know some people use the argument well the virus does not travel only at night, it travels during the day. But during the day we are usually at work or we are usually conscious or we keep on the mask, we wash our hands, we try to keep our distance, but once we start taking a few drinks, we forget about the mask, the social distancing - then that's when we get in trouble. So the minister made a recommendation to cabinet that they want at least for the next 2 weeks to increase the hours. Take it from 10pm to 9pm and 7 days a week for the next 2 weeks to see if the numbers would start to fall."
"We are kind of containing it. If we have not been acting and decisively, probably it would have been far worse, but because of the quick actions of the Ministry of Health and I must commend Minister Chebat and the people at the Ministry of Health for that excellent work that they have been doing - we are still managing to hold it down, but curfew and the people at the Ministry of Health believes that will be able to catch up to bring down the spread and flatten the covid curve."
