COVID-19 Numbers Are Bad In Ecuador. The President Says The Real Story Is Even Worse
Hospitals and doctors are overwhelmed. So are funeral homes and cemeteries. "You feel powerless," said one doctor tending to 200 patients.
Ecuador has one of the highest rates of COVID-19 in all of Latin America – with 10,128 cases and 507 deaths in a country of just 17 million people.
But the situation may be far worse than what the official numbers show. In fact, one Ecuadorian official says it appears that thousands more people may have died of the disease than his government is reporting.
Jorge Wated, who heads a government task force charged with that in the first 15 days of April, 6,703 people had died from either COVID-19 or natural causes. Previous to the coronavirus outbreak, he said, the monthly figure was around 1,000.
