And while Shyne had the health minister and the prime minister in front of him, he posed two COVID-related questions to them. The first was when the PM would reinstate the bipartisan covid response committee like he promised. Well, Briceno said that the committee has been reinstated but the UDP party leader didn't elect a representative to join the team. He told Shyne that the offer was made and that it's still there if he wants to take it up, but the representative has to be knowledgeable of the medical field and not just any politician.
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"If the leader of the opposition would have checked with the leader of the party or less than 50% of the members, he would have told you, member, that the ministry of health and wellness did invite the opposition to join in the national medical covid 19 response team. I have a copy of the letter on the 17th of December of 2020, a letter that was written to the leader of the opposition, then honorable member from Collet, Patrick Faber."
"The letter was also sent to the Belize network of non government organization who at that time is now the governor general, Ms Froyla Tzalam. They recommended Andre Carrillo, the executive director of BERT, and then the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry and they nominated Dr Jorge Hidalgo. I checked with the minister of health and he assured me that the committee meets once and sometimes twice a month. We were very clear during the elections that we would be dealing with covid- the way to fight covid is by silence and it is important to get the politicians out of the way and allow doctors and nurses and public health officials and people who know what they're talking to lead the way and they have shown tremendous success since we got in."
"I'm a bit disappointed that the leader of the opposition did no check with the leader of the party because then the leader of the party would have told him that they did get a letter inviting them to nominate a person and guess what, they either didn't give any interest or importance to this or decided that they want to do nothing with the government and they refused to name a member to this committee."
Barrow also asked the minister of health when restrictions will be relaxed for those who are vaccinated. Minister Chebat responded by saying that they want to go down that route, but there are just too few vaccinations so far.
Hon. Michel Chebat, Minister of Health
"To start rolling out the benefits in a more tangible way, we need to have more people vaccinated. Currently we have 39.7% with 1 dose and 17% fully vaccinated. This is the only way we can open up our country sir. What you should invest some time in doing member, is perhaps travelling on the southside of Belize City encouraging the citizens of the southside to come out a get vaccinated. This is the way for us to move our country forward, Mr Leader. This is the only way to protect our people from this deadly virus. No pantry, no community vote, no other assistance can impact the lives of our people like the way the vaccinations can. So please sir, I invite you to encourage your constituents and the constituents of yours on your side to come out and get vaccinated."
Up until yesterday, 170,883 persons have gotten at least their first dose, whereas 73,079 are fully vaxxed.
