Tonight, the holiday weekend has pretty much started for most citizens. Belize will join the rest of the Caribbean for the very first time in the celebration of African Emancipation Day.
But, you'll have to enjoy your new public and bank holiday with tighter COVID-19 regulations. The Ministry of Health and Wellness has been tracking the upwards trend in COVID cases for this month, and the Government has decided to take action.
This evening, the Ministry of Health and Wellness announced the new changes in a Zoom Press conference. Four days after rolling the curfew back to 10:00 pm, they will now put it back to 9:00 p.m. nightly. The new changes take effect on August 1st - Minister of Health Michel Chebat explained:
Hon. Michel Chebat, Minister of Health and Wellness
"As a consequence of the rapid rise in covid numbers that we are seeing, there are going to be new public health measures that are going to be coming into force as of Sunday the 1st August, 2021. Some of the new measures that are going to be implemented include the definition of frontline workers, employees of a BPO have now been included and so have the civil aviation officials - they are now included as frontline workers. The implication of that is that those who are not vaccinated by the 31st of July, 2021, would be required to now present a negative covid test to their place of employment."
"Secondly, we are moving the curfew. The curfew will now be from 9pm to 4am and that starts on Sunday 1st August. The other change we are making is that every tour operator and every tour guide must present their vaccination card. In terms of casinos and any other gaming establishment, they are to operate at 50% of their capacity only. We are also going to be implementing and expanding on the portion of the law that deals with a fraudulent immunization card. We are going to be implementing what is going to be called a covid enforcement unit, which will have at its primary task the enforcement of the public health measures and these individuals will have the authority to go into all business establishments and public facilities to ensure that those who are present in those establishments are observing the public health measures."
"Additionally, we are going to be locking down for a period of two weeks the village of Santa Elena in the Toledo District. We have been experiencing a large number of positive cases coming out of that village and we believe that the only way to control is to lock down that village. So, as of today for a period of two weeks they are going to be lock down as we did with Barranco, Conejo and Midway, we are going to be providing them with water, food and a stipend for a period of two weeks."
As you heard, Santa Elena, Toledo is about to go on lockdown for 2 weeks, following an increase in the number of positive cases coming out of that small village in July. The lockdown that was instituted for Barranco, Conejo, and Midway will come to an end this weekend - because the COVID situation has improved in these communities.
