Even with Dip in New Infections, Omicron Wave Could Last Weeks

While the number of new infections dipped for the first time this week to below a thousand, Dr. Diaz-Musa said that this is by no means a sign that the wave has peaked. In fact, as she explains, it could mean quite the contrary.

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Deputy Manager, Central Health Region

“It is a bit too early for us to say for sure because some countries, and in Belize, we’ve had some situations when we have a little dip and then a sharp rise a few days after. So it is definitely too early (to say) but I must say that for the Belize District for today and yesterday, we have been seeing a little less positivity rate, but nothing for us to say, yes, we’re now improving from this wave. We’ve got to look at it over the next two weeks and really see what’s happening at our testing sites and at our clinics and at the hospitals as well, in order to say more that yes, we may have reached our peak and we’re now going down. But other countries that have gone through an Omicron wave have described four to six weeks of cases going up and then starting to see a downward trend. For a country to say that we have recovered from a wave or an outbreak, we need to have at least two consecutive weeks of a positivity rate of less than five, so we’re not that close to that number as yet. There are two charts that show positivity rates. There is accumulated positivity rate, which is usually between, I think now it’s between nine and ten, and then we have the daily positivity rate nationally. This rate tells us nationally of all the tests being done, how many persons tested positive. So the denominator is all tests done and the numerator is the positive cases that we have picked up. That is fluctuating right now. I think yesterday it was twenty-six or twenty-seven, I think the day before it was twenty-nine or twenty-five so it is fluctuating in the twenties presently and we really need to get that down.”