7 News Belize

And after Dr Cuellar contracted and survived COVID, the interviews he gave were virtual for a while - but still, he never refused, using his own experience as an example. And during the three years of the pandemic, he served as a voice of reason and reassurance, both inside the hospital and on air. And for media houses, he was a major help in relaying accurate and authoritative information in a time of extreme uncertainty.

Isani Cayetano, News Director, News 5 Live
"You had a situation where you had all of these health professionals from the government and the private sector who were forming together to see how best they could shepherd through this pandemic and with his knowledge, he shared both the good and the bad. And it goes back to what I was saying, he never held anything back so if he felt that a policy wasn't really working or was too bureaucratic or whatever the case, you would hear from him. If he is of the feeling or the belief that this was working, you'd always hear from him in a positive light that these are the steps that needed to be taken and so while the pandemic was something that we have never lived through before now, to have someone like him as a voice in the background that say, okay, you know what, this is the right step, but this is also what we need to do, I think it was reassuring."

Jules Vasquez, News Director, 7News Belize
"I think that Dr Cuellar was heroic during COVID. There has never been a time of greater uncertainty about public health and he spoke with such clarity, such authority, such fearlessness, in a time when everybody was scared, we were scared of our loved ones, of our neighbors, and he really was like, in a night of darkness, he was a torch that just made, that clarified the overall picture that much more and it really invested all of us with a lot of confidence I think that we'll make it out."

"When he got back from COVID, and he got it bad, he made himself available for interviews. When he lost his toe to diabetes, I felt bad for us to even call him but such was his public record that we know he's willing to talk about it. And he did." v "You can't ever calculate how many people Tony Cuellar helped and healed just by using the media."