Ecuador registers a 67% reduction in the waiting list for hospitalization

Ricardo Vizueta, Undersecretary of Surveillance of the Ministry of Health, reported that there is a marked reduction in the waiting list for hospitalization. The week of May 9 there was a 48% reduction and, this week, it is 67% less.

He pointed out that the waiting list for a bed in the ICU, without the state of exception, could have reached more than 600 people.

The occupancy of beds in the Intensive Care Units (ICU) stands at 92.5% nationwide, which represents a decrease compared to previous weeks. In the hospitals of the Ecuadorian Institute of Security (IESS) it went from 97% to 95%, while the health homes of the MSP fell from 92% to 90%. General hospitalization in the country fell from 71% to 63% nationwide.

There was also a reduction in infections in all provinces, not only in those governed by the state of exception. The decrease is 45%.

Vizueta mentioned that in the weeks without a state of exception, only Galapagos had a low risk of contagion. Now, more provinces with low risk appear and those that were in red are more controlled.

The president of the National Emergency Operations Committee (COE), Juan Zapata, reported that, at the beginning of the state of exception, the IESS had a registry of more than 400 people waiting for an ICU bed and, at the moment, they are less than 200.

They did not give figures on the death rate because, Zapata explained, the dynamics of the pandemic take up to four weeks to have a trend. So on May 20 they will deliver the final report with these figures.

Zapata said that it is the first weekend with a decrease in all the figures that are controlled in the pandemic. The General of the National Police, Alain Luna, from Zone 9, indicated that May 15 and 16 were days in which there was a considerable reduction in the levels of violence.

With regard to curfew operations, he stressed that the results are favorable because there were fewer citizens detained. The provinces with the most emergencies due to non-compliance with the curfew are: Guayas with 84 people, Pichincha with 50, Azuay 31, Esmeraldas 19 and El Oro with 14 people.