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Dec 23, 2021

New Sugar Crop Starts Monday

An intervention from Prime Minister John Briceño led the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association (BSCFA) and Belize Sugar Industries Limited (BSI) and American Sugar Refineries (ASR) to agree to sign an interim agreement. That agreement will last until April 30, 2022, and take effect on January 20, 2022, a day after the current commercial agreement expires. A meeting held today by the Sugar Industry Control Board (SICB), for which all directors were present, led to the feuding

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Dec 17, 2021

BMDA TO OPINE ON LAND-BORDER REOPENING

Belize’s land borders are scheduled to reopen on January 1st, 2022, and the Belize Medical and Dental Association (BMDA) says that their formal position on the matter should be released within two days. Following this week’s Cabinet brief that announced the reopening date, The Reporter reached out to the President of the Belize Medical and Dental Association (BMDA) Dr. Ulidine Wright. The BMDA president explained that the association is taking a cautious approach to the topic

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Dec 15, 2021

WHO: “77 countries have now reported cases of Omicron.”

“Seventy-seven countries have now reported cases of Omicron, and the reality is that Omicron is probably in most countries, even if it hasn’t been detected yet,” WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom announced a media briefing on Wednesday. Adhanom opened his presentation by underscoring just how fast Omicron is being transmitted and expressed concern over people dismissing Omicron as mild. “Surely, we have learned by now that we underestimate this virus at our peril. Even if

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Nov 26, 2021

APSSM President: ‘Chebat out of line’

The Minister of Health and Wellness (MOHW) is out of line in the way he sought to curtail the powers of the ministry’s CEO, Association of Public Sector Senior Managers (APSSM)’s President Sharon Frazer told the Reporter this week. Speaking to the media reports that the minister, Hon. Michel Chebat, had written to instruct CEO Deysi Mendez that she could no longer make out any purchase orders, invoices, contracts, agreements, or payments in excess of $3500 without his consent

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Oct 22, 2021

NEAB opposes vaccine mandate for Churches

The National Evangelical Association of Belize (NEAB) has penned a letter to Prime Minister John Briceño expressing their discontent with the recent announcement via S.I No.119 which stipulates that only vaccinated persons will be allowed in churches. On Wednesday, October 6th, Briceño met with NEAB, and the Belize Association of Evangelical Churches to discuss areas of interest and collaboration between the various entities. While NEAB said that they were grateful for the m

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Oct 16, 2021

Deputy DHS: ‘Approx. 80% of fully vaccinated COVID patients who have died had NCDs’

Approximately 80 percent of the fully vaccinated persons who have died from COVID-19-related complications, were also persons with other non-communicable diseases, Deputy Director of Health Services (DHS) Dr. Francis Morey explained this week. Data from the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) revealed that diabetics which account for 36 percent of the deaths among the fully vaccinated are the highest cause, followed by Chronic Renal Failure at 20 percent, HIV at 12.0 perce

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Oct 13, 2021

Corozal Free Zone Successfully Keeps COVID-19 Out

The Corozal Freezone, which reopened its doors over eight months ago, despite heavy criticism from the public surrounding the safety of Belizeans, has managed to combat the odds and has only reported one COVID-19 infection since its reopening. According to the information, one symptomatic case was picked up last week by the robust screening measures at the entrance of the Freezone. That individual was immediately swabbed while a health team moved swiftly to conduct contract t

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Oct 12, 2021

OPINION| Digging into the COVID numbers

So there’s depressing news on the COVID front again this week, as we report 11 people died over the weekend, and the number of patients in hospital and the ICU remain high. We also have a cryptic message accompanying Monday’s data published on the new MOHW data dissemination platform, with a reference to a July backlog, and a new “reporting site” which results in 48 of the 73 cases on San Pedro. I have no idea what this means to be honest, nor why a backlog takes over 2 month

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Oct 12, 2021

MOHW reports almost 500 new cases, 11 COVID-related deaths

The Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW)’s COVID-19 update for Monday, October 11th, informed that 491 new cases have been identified, and that 11 persons have died from COVID-related complications within the last three days. The number of new infections, which covers the period for October 9-11, is the highest reported under the present wave of COVID infections, with the closest second being the 419 new infections reported for October 2-4, 2021. Even when compared to other

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Oct 8, 2021

PSU to GOB: Regulate COVID test’s prices at private institutions

The Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) has announced the rollout of “free testing” sites for the public to access, a move the Public Service Union (PSU) applauds while it simultaneously calls on government to regulate COVID test prices provided by private institutions. According to an MOHW release, the two testing sites, which are located at the Civic Center in Belize City and the Civic Center parking lot in Belmopan, are opened from 8:30 a.m to 2:00 p.m from Monday to Fr

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Oct 7, 2021

UDP critiques MOHW’s policies, calls for transparency regarding COVID test prices

Belize City, October 7, 2021 “Test, test test! Isolate, isolate, isolate!”, was Opposition Leader Hon. Patrick Faber’s urgent call to the Government of Belize and to the Ministry of Health and Wellness to make COVID testing free for everyone and do more tests for COVID-19, as a way to slow the spread of the virus. Faber was backed by a team of health professionals: Dr. George Gough, Dr. Alain Gonzalez and Dr. Shanikka Arnold, who offered several recommendations at a press con

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Oct 7, 2021

Cabinet approves ‘COVID-19 Enforcement Unit’

The Government has approved the establishment of a “COVID-19 Enforcement Unit”, this week’s Cabinet brief announced. The unit is to help government better control the outbreak of COVID-19. As part of the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW), the enforcement unit’s primary mandate is “to oversee responsibilities for the maintenance of supervision and enforcement of COVID-19 protocols in all businesses and other establishments.” The decision follows weeks of increasing COVID

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Oct 7, 2021

PCR, Rapid Test and Your Budget

Effective October 1st, 2021, under the new testing regime that the Government of Belize will be implementing, which will mandate that any person entering a government-owned building or office shall be required to show proof of vaccination, or a Negative PCR or Rapid Test, will prove to be a hefty price tag for citizens who choose not to be inoculated. A recent background check carried out by the Reporter at several private medical institutions, that has been approved by the M

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Oct 6, 2021

Nurses Association: ‘Vax’ making Belizeans too ‘Lax’

Effective Friday, October 1st, anyone entering a Government building or office is required to show proof of immunization or a negative COVID-19 test, and while the public is still getting used to that, the Nurses Association of Belize says that they are opposing the mandate. In a recent interview with the Reporter, the association’s president, Darrell Spencer, told us that they are opposing the “vaccine pass” on the basis of patient confidentiality. “A person’s health status

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Oct 1, 2021

Medical Community supports ‘Vaccine Pass’ introduced under new COVID rules

By Michelle Sutherland A recent poll conducted among approximately 200 members of the Belize Medical and Dental Association (BMDA) has revealed that a majority of their members are in support of the Government’s proposed “vaccination pass” which is scheduled to be rolled out today, October 1st. The vaccination pass will restrict unvaccinated persons from entering any Government-controlled buildings if they cannot present a negative PCR or Rapid test, taken within two weeks. T

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Sep 29, 2021

YouTube to remove ‘fake news’ about COVID vaccines

By Javan Flowers “Content that falsely alleges that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease, or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines will be removed,” announced YouTube via its website on Wednesday. The YouTube Team highlighted that their Community Guideline Policies were crafted with the intention to fight against content that (1) falsely alleges tha

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Sep 25, 2021

MOHW Data: Pandemic of the ‘unvaccinated’

Approximately 77 percent of the COVID-19-related deaths recorded from August 1st to September 24th are among unvaccinated persons, newly released cumulative data from the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) informed this week. The MOHW’s data—provided via updated graphics—shows that among the 65 COVID deaths for this period, 50 of those persons were unvaccinated. The data also shows that only 10 persons (about 15 percent) were fully vaccinated, and five (about 7.7 percent)

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Aug 21, 2021

Belize inching closer to WHO’s CT level 3 classification?

Belize’s COVID-19 positivity rate has since surpassed the five percent threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO), and if the trend continues Belize could soon be classified as being at what the WHO calls “Community Transmission Level Three” (CT3). Based on the information produced by the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW), the country’s positivity rate—defined as the total number of positive COVID patients divided by the number of (new) COVID-19 tests—crossed t

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Jun 30, 2021

New COVID Variant Spreading Fast, MOH Introducing New Measures

The Ministry of Health and Wellness is reporting the possibility of the detection of a new Covid variant in the country, which is believed to be responsible for the spike in COVID-19 infections in the past few days, and community spread in the south of the country. In an interview with a local media house, Minister Michel Chebat said that while Belize does not have the capacity to test the samples, health experts are suspecting that it is the Delta Variant, known to be highly

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