And the reality of the super-majority of the patients not being vaccinated is one that the medical professionals at the KHMH are trying to change.
They've flung open the doors of the once guarded COVID Unit to show the public graphically what happens when you catch COVID-19.
It's grim and there are very many unhappy endings.
But, the story must be told, and tonight, we take you back inside for part two of our series to show you the fight between life and death in the COVID unit.
The COVID report, you hear it every night, and inevitably it comes to the point where we tell you how many patients are hospitalized and how many are in the ICU.
But behind the numbers are the real people, the ones who have contracted and who are suffering from the disease. And in part two of our journey into the COVID ward, Dr. Adrian Coye tells us how they are seeing the mutation of the virus almost in real time.
Adrian Coye, Ag Director - Medical Services
"We know for sure that yes there was a version of COVID that was able to attack people who were susceptible and the elderly with comorbidities were susceptible, but mutations always happen with viruses and this is no different for COVID and therefore we've reached the point where we have, I think particularly virulent viruses going around the world and around Belize and it's the explanation why in the U.S. 200 deaths a day now and everywhere else chaos."
"All of a sudden you go from having 100% lung function to 20% or 30% and that can happen really really fast and so the experience of our team here has been many many instances where someone might be a little bit of oxygen in the morning, the cascade is happening there's no real way to interrupt it and before evening has come the patient is intubated and in dire straits and therefore it can happen much, very, very, precipitously."
And, no one knows how quickly patients can take a turn for the worse quite like PUI unit manager Casilda Bowman.
Casilda Bowman, Unit Manager, Covid Patient Under Investigation Unit
"We are seeing a dynamic shift in that because we are seeing 9 month old positive we are seeing 20 years old on the machine and as you have seen just a while ago a thirty year old is on a high flow machine that is really in a severe state, so we are seeing a mix of our demography here."
Bowman says the solution lies in what you've been hearing all along, that often controversial jab. Her experience has been that it's often the difference between life and death.
Casilda Bowman
"While I'm not pushing for the vaccine I'm going to advocate for it but I see how it works, if I had to take the vaccine every 3 months, I would be talking the vaccine, why, because I see the effectiveness of it and I see this through our patients who are coming in and the symptoms they are presenting. I see how patients come in that are not vaccinated and the symptoms and the outcome of that patient, and so for me it's to me it's a solid message that I get to see day in day out."
And, as you can imagine none of those days have been easy ones. Timothy Seguro was still acting CEO at the time of this taping, and with the reins of the country's COVID crisis center in hand, he told us why the team in the COVID Ward is both exceptional and independent.
Timothy Seguro, Acting CEO, KHMH
"It's been over a year now and some of these staff have remained, some got rotated out, as a matter of fact presently we have approximately 95 staff actively involved in the day to day actions of this unit and as I've mentioned previously this unit operates almost like an isolated hospital, because whatever category of patient comes to that unity has to be dealt with in that unit, so it can be surgical maternity, internal medicine whatever care has to be done within that unit so that staff in there has to be very diverse."
Casilda Bowman
"It's nothing new that the hospital is overwhelmed, I don't have to speak to that."
"We have to a lot of times rotate patients around very quickly just to try to accommodate people, and I always say listen, guys, the population, it's not your job to worry about if I don't have a bed, if you're not feeling well, if you cannot breath well come to the hospital let it be our problem, we will fix it, we have always done it, and we will continue to do it."
And while that's the attitude of the staff, never failing and ever ready, acting CEO Seguro told us that they aren't the only ones being dealt emotional blows in the COVID ward.
Timothy Seguro, Acting CEO, KHMH
"Its not somewhere that you should look forward to be coming to, because if you notice at the triage, that is where you say your goodby face to face. it is eithet one of the two, you either end up in the morgue or you end up with your loved ones after the ordeal is over and the same trauma that our nurses and doctors go through being in that unit. a mental toll on anybody and everybody that witnesses it-----try to make you well as soon as possible."
The hope is that with at least two doses of the vaccine and good hygiene measures you only ever have to see this ward from your TV screen. And the story continues tomorrow night when we bring you another dimension of the COVID experience: what it's like for the families of those patients who die here.
