Ecuador coronavirus cases double after backlog analysis

The number of coronavirus cases in Ecuador almost doubled to 22,000 following the processing of a testing backlog, the health minister said on Thursday.

Prior to the news, the government had reported just under 12,000 cases and 560 deaths so far from COVID-19. It also revealed there were likely another 1,028 deaths from the deadly virus that hadn’t been tested.

The new figures mean Ecuador, a country of 17.5 million people, has surpassed Chile and Peru and is now the second-worst hit nation in Latin America.

Only Brazil, with almost 50,000 cases and more than 3,000 deaths amongst its population of 210 million, has been worse affected.

“There’s no new outbreak, it’s simply that the tests that had been stored have been analyzed,” Health Minister Juan Carlos Zevallos told the state EcuadorTV, without revealing whether or not the number of deaths would also be updated.

The number of new tests analyzed — 23,800 — was almost identical to the number that had previously been processed. (AFP)