BELMOPAN, Belize (CMC)— The Belize authorities have confirmed that one person has died as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and the government is to announce plans for a countrywide curfew this weekend.

“We can confirm that we have one death associated to COVID-19, this would be the third one for Belize. The person passed away earlier at Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH) Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the…person was less than 12 hours in the ICU,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

Media reports said that the person is from Belize City and has been identified as a 52-year-old man, whose daughter took to Facebook to confirm his death.

The Ministry of Health said that 32 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours and that two patients remain “intubated and critically ill at the KHMH ICU”. The total number of positive cases now stands at 388.

“As we move through the weekend, we anticipate clearing up all the backlog of samples from the Central Medical Laboratory,” the authorities said, adding “please continue exercising all the necessary precautions under new norms”.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte is expected to outline the new measures being put in place to curb the spread of the virus.

He will appear on the government programme “Ask the Experts” on Saturday night, detailing the countrywide curfew that will come into effect soon.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Dean Barrow had told Parliament that “we will change the curfew hours to go back to weekday curfews starting at 8:00 pm and of course ending at 5:00 am the next morning.  Weekends, two days, we will extend the curfew hours so that curfew will start at 10:00 pm and of course end at 5:00 am.”

“Again, Madame Speaker, we’re doing this to indicate that we take what is happening very seriously.  We got to put in these additional measures but we do not want to go overboard because we don’t want to heighten the sense of alarm, legitimately.

“The sense of panic even, on the part of our people.  If all those, in particular, the border jumpers, contrabandistas, would do their share. I’m not saying that we will completely defeat the virus, but we’ll get to a point where we can live with it, “Barrow said, adding “we’ve got to find a way to live with this thing until they find a vaccine”.