Ecuador strives to contain the spread of the coronavirus despite authorities suppressing figures and the country’s warm weather condition.
With hospitals and morgues overwhelmed in Guayaquil, bodies are abandoned on the streets or left to decay in houses, cargo trailers and parking lots.
According to local media, smell of the exposed corpses sticks like bile in the throat, and flocks of vultures wheel above the city waiting their chance to feed on human carrion.
Cemeteries are far beyond capacity, so some of the dead are now buried in unmarked graves in outlying fields.
Other cadavers are secreted out of the city by loved ones, disguised as sleeping passengers to slip through military checkpoints trying to stop the spread of the contagion.
Lacking the advanced technology and robust infrastructure of their First World counterparts, hospitals and health centers in Guayaquil have been swamped by climbing infection rates since late March, often leaving ordinary citizens to deal as best they can with dead and dying family members.
Videos allegedly showing bodies being burned in the streets are now widespread on social media and reproduced by news outlets across Latin America.
Ecuadorian government have begun issuing makeshift cardboard caskets, because traditional, more durable models have run out.
Two new cemeteries with an estimated 10,000 graves are under construction, as experts predict the worst is yet to come, with the death toll likely to peak in late April.
Guayaquil, which is Ecuador’s largest city, has become the epicenter for COVID-19 in Latin America with 5,381confirmed cases and 160 deaths as reported by the Ecuadorian media.
Yet more than 800 bodies in recent weeks have been removed from homes in Guayaquil, confirming that the figures are being under-reported.
“The number we have collected with the taskforce from people’s homes exceeded 700 people,” said Jorge Wated, who leads a team of police and military personnel created by the government to help with the chaos unleashed by COVID-19.
He later said on Sunday on Twitter that the joint taskforce, in operation for the past three weeks, had retrieved 771 bodies from homes and another 631 from hospitals, whose morgues are full.
African countries can learn a thing or two from Ecuador. Most notably, how it is suffering from under-reporting cases.
Like most sub-saharan countries, it has an average temperature of 25°C and is usually very hot from December to May. The rest of the year is warm.
Its weather bursts the myth that the virus wanes as temperatures rise. ” You can catch COVID-19, no matter how sunny or hot the weather is,” the World Health Organisation warned.
“Countries with hot weather have reported cases of COVID-19. To protect yourself, make sure you clean your hands frequently and thoroughly and avoid touching your eyes, mouth, and nose.”
This is too bad! Corpses let to decompose at home? That is an epidemic on its own! It’s better they are buried in shallow graves in their rooms or compound.