COVID-19: Belize's Success Story in Containing Community Spread Has Suffered a Setback!

Belize is one of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with the lowest COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths until recently. The success of a low community spread of the novel coronavirus-19 can be attributed to the government's rapid response in effective community participation through communication, promoting personal hygiene, social distancing, quarantine, and rapid mapping to trace, identify, and test potentially COVID-19 exposed persons. In addition to effective public awareness, legal and spiritual approaches were utilized to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country of Belize. From March 2020 when the first case was confirmed, the methods employed to curb spread were so effective that no new case was reported for over 50 days. In an attempt to reopen the country for business, the success of effectively preventing widespread of the COVID-19 made the government ease some of the strict preventive measures of community spread. Presently, new COVID-19 cases are being reported as a result of illegal border crossing, repatriations of Belizeans abroad, and the apparent lack of adherence to the earlier measures put in place by the government to curb community spread of the COVID-19. The rise in the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths in Belize seem to jeopardize the success story of community spread earlier recorded in the country. This article presents some of the earlier measures put in place by the government of Belize that effectively curbed the community spread of COVID-19 in the country of Belize. Effective community participation is still the most effective means of preventing COVID-19 spread.