ESPOL Polytechnic University, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Matemáticas, Campus Gustavo Galindo Km. 30.5 Vía Perimetral, P.O. Box 09-01-5863, Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Int J Infect Dis. 2021 Mar;104:297-299. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.12.045. Epub 2020 Dec 19.
Ecuador is among the worst-hit countries in the world by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In terms of confirmed deaths per million inhabitants, as of October 22, Ecuador ranks fourth in the Americas and ninth worldwide according to data from the World Health Organization. In this report, we estimate excess deaths due to any cause in Ecuador since the start of the lockdown measures on March 17, 2020 until October 22, 2020.
Estimates of excess deaths were calculated as the difference between the number of observed deaths from all causes and estimates of expected deaths from all causes. Expected deaths were estimated for the period March 17-October 22, 2020 from forecasts of an ARIMA model of order (3,0,1) with drift which was applied to daily mortality data for the period from January 1, 2014 to March 16, 2020.
The number of all-cause excess deaths in Ecuador was estimated to be 36,922 (95% bootstrap confidence interval: 32,314-42,696) during the study period. The peak in all-cause excess mortality in Ecuador may have occurred on April 4, 2020, with 909 excess deaths.
Our results suggest that the real impact of the pandemic in Ecuador was much worse than that indicated by reports from national institutions. Estimates of excess mortality might provide a better approximation of the true COVID-19 death toll. These estimates might capture not only deaths directly attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic but also deaths from other diseases that resulted from indirect effects of the pandemic.
厄瓜多尔是受 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行影响最严重的国家之一。根据世界卫生组织的数据，截至 10 月 22 日，按每百万居民确诊死亡人数计算，厄瓜多尔在美洲排名第四，在全球排名第九。在本报告中，我们估计自 2020 年 3 月 17 日封锁措施开始至 2020 年 10 月 22 日期间，厄瓜多尔因任何原因导致的超额死亡人数。
超额死亡人数的估计值是通过观察到的所有原因死亡人数与所有原因预期死亡人数之间的差值计算得出的。预期死亡人数是根据一个带有漂移的 ARIMA 模型（阶数为（3,0,1）的预测值计算得出的，该模型适用于 2014 年 1 月 1 日至 2020 年 3 月 16 日期间的每日死亡率数据。
在研究期间，厄瓜多尔所有原因超额死亡人数估计为 36922 人（95% bootstrap 置信区间：32314-42696）。厄瓜多尔所有原因超额死亡率的峰值可能出现在 2020 年 4 月 4 日，有 909 例超额死亡。
我们的结果表明，厄瓜多尔大流行的实际影响比国家机构报告所显示的要严重得多。超额死亡率的估计值可能更能准确估计 COVID-19 的实际死亡人数。这些估计值不仅可以捕捉到直接归因于 COVID-19 大流行的死亡人数，还可以捕捉到因大流行的间接影响而导致的其他疾病的死亡人数。
