67 Percent of Belizean Adults Vaccinated
While the number of persons who turned out for their COVID vaccinations has risen sharply over previous months, the overall number of persons who have gotten the jab is still fewer than fifty percent. Up to Tuesday when Cabinet was briefed by the Minister of Health, forty-eight point seven percent of the population had received at least one dose of the vaccine and forty-five point six percent had been fully vaccinated. But according to Deputy Manager of the Central Health Region, Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, the number of persons targeted to take the vaccinations is fewer than the entire population, so the percentage of fully vaxed persons is significantly higher than fifty percent. It actually stood at around sixty-seven percent of the adult population.
Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa
Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Deputy Mgr., Central Health Region
“From July of this year, I think it was July first when all phases were opened up, and everybody was welcome to come and get vaccinated. At that point, we saw a sharp increase in the number of persons being vaccinated – I believe fifty or sixty thousand people in a short period of time. When we look at the number of persons vaccinated with two doses, it’s just about forty-five percent when we look at the overall population. And for persons with one dose, like you quite rightly said, it’s just below fifty percent; it’s forty-nine percent. But when we look at the target population, that’s when the numbers go higher. Because Belize, we have a very young population. So we’ve got to keep in mind that we don’t have the five to eleven vaccines available in Belize; we do have from twelve to seventeen. So when you look at the population from twelve and up it’s just over three hundred thousand persons. So we have approximately a hundred and twenty-five thousand persons who are not eligible to get vaccinated at this point. So there are different ways of looking at the percentage. We’ve got to really improve on the twelve to seventeen (age range) as well because that number remains pretty low still. We’re urging parents to bring your children in, especially looking at January, we know that many schools will be reopened in January for hybrid learning. So we need to get the kids vaccinated as quickly as possible. Although, yes it’s true that children may not have the severity of the disease as the elderly or as persons with co morbidity, children play a very big role in the transmission of the disease. They may have very mild symptoms, the parents might not realize that they are carrying the COVID virus and they continue to spread the virus. And we’ve seen that, from experience we’ve seen children being moved from family to family and the virus being spread through the child.”
Diaz- Musa urges people who have still not gotten their vaccinations to do so. According to figures provided by the Government, just about fifty percent of the age twelve to fifteen population, or a little less than twenty-four thousand of the eligible children have been vaccinated. In two bright spots in the vaccination efforts, Belize Water Services announced this week that ninety-nine percent of its staff had been fully vaccinated. The Anglican clergy have also reported almost one hundred percent of their members being fully vaccinated.
