Honduran pres. warns on inequality in COVID fight

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández says that as a COVID-19 survivor, he's worried about health and social inequities heightened by the pandemic.

The Central American leader was hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19 in July.

In a prerecorded video aired Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly, Hernández said that in the global rush to stock up on medicines and hospital equipment during the early months of the pandemic, "only a few countries were able to get ample access."

He added, "It wasn't those who are the most in need."

Nations that produce supplies frequently held on to them for their own population. Hernández asked, "What about the rest of the countries? People die?"

Hernández likewise questioned who will get access to a vaccine.

He concluded by noting that, "The virus has reminded us in the most difficult way that in the end we are all humans — vulnerable, members of the same species."

Honduras has diagnosed over 72,000 cases in the nation of 9.5 million.