Belize had covid-1919 under control until late last week.  Unfortunately, there has been a surge in covid-19 cases over the past few days.  Ambergris Caye and three villages in Orange Walk District are now under quarantine – no one is allowed in or out.

The Ministry of Health confirmed a number of new cases bringing the total number of active cases to 120.  Most of these cases are in San Pedro (76) in Ambergris Caye where three clusters were identified.   Contract tracing is underway.  The Ministry says the source of these current infections is unclear.

It is believed that the source for the Orange Walk District cases were persons bringing contraband from Mexico.  The Belize Police, Belize Defense Force and the Belize Coast guard are all charged with the difficult border security situation with plenty of possible places to cross the border.  The Government says the source for the Ambergris Caye cases is not clear.

The borders remain closed and individuals engaging in contraband or illegal crossing of borders will be heavily penalized.

Timing for opening the international airport is uncertain and dependent on success of coping with this recent outbreak.

In the meantime, we continue to prepare for Belize to re-open for international tourism.  We are working on our Gold Standard Certificate application and improving our facilities and practices.  At Splash we are all in on doing what we need to keep our crews and guests safe.  We just ordered the touchless bathroom facilities – perhaps the only dive center in the world with those facilities!

Watch this space.  We will keep you informed on our progress.  In the meantime, we wait for you to join us here in paradise.  You can see that we have lots of room on the beach!