Coronavirus: Chile, China officials contradict each other over donated ventilators

Chilean government official says he is expecting China to donate ventilators, but the Chinese ambassador said he had ‘no information’ on the matter

Government officials said that they were waiting on between 500 and 1,000 donated ventilators

Reading Time:2 minutes

People wearing protective masks wait in line to present documents at a notary office in Santiago, Chile. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 6:10am, 20 Apr 2020Updated: 7:40am, 20 Apr 2020

Chile is expecting China to donate ventilators to help cope with the coronavirus outbreak, a government official said on Sunday, contradicting earlier statements by China’s ambassador to the South American country that he was unaware of such a shipment.

Chilean Health Minister Jaime Mañalich, speaking to local radio and TV media, reaffirmed that the South American country would receive the machines from China, in line with earlier announcements by government officials that they were waiting on between 500 and 1,000 donated ventilators, critical medical equipment for treating Covid-19.

Mañalich’s comments came after China’s ambassador to Chile, Xu Bu, said he had “no information” about the donated ventilators in an interview published by Chilean paper La Tercera on Sunday.

“What (Xu) says verbatim is that he is not informed. I am not going to say a word about ventilators, the ventilators are coming,” Mañalich told Tele13 Radio.

People wearing protective masks wait for a train at the Plaza de Armas subway station in Santiago, Chile. Photo: Bloomberg

Chile, which has the third-highest number of cases in the region, has 590 ventilators currently available, Mañalich said. The South American country’s confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 10,000 on Sunday with 133 total deaths.