QUITO, April 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Front line medics in one of Latin America’s coronavirus epicenters are lifting the lid on the daily horrors they face in an Ecuadoran city Guayaquil, whose health system has collapsed.
In one hospital overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, staff have had to pile up bodies in bathrooms because the morgues are full, health workers say.
In another, a medic said that doctors have been forced to wrap up and store corpses to be able to reuse the beds they died on.
Ecuador has recorded 24,675 coronavirus cases and 883 deaths, with Guayaquil by far its worst affected city. But the real toll is thought to be far higher.
Guayaquil’s health system has collapsed under the pressure of the coronavirus, and it seems to be having catastrophic knock-on effects.
In the first half of April, the province of Guayas, whose capital is Guayaquil, have already topped 7,000 deaths, more than three times the monthly average.
The disparity suggests that the real COVID-19 death toll is far greater than the official nationwide tally of fewer than 600.
President Lenin Moreno has acknowledged that Ecuador’s official coronavirus tallies “are short” of the true figures.
The pandemic has hit Ecuador with disproportionate force.
A country of 17.6 million, Ecuador is the 8th most populous nation in Latin America. Yet it stands second only to Brazil in the number of infections and Covid-19 deaths in Latin America.
Almost 70 per cent of Ecuador’s cases are from coastal Guayas province, which includes Guayaquil. And a local estimate of the coronavirus death toll during March and April, based on the usual amount of deaths, shows virus-related fatalities have already topped 7,000 in Guayaquil alone.
An earthquake in 2016 killed about 670 people throughout Ecuador.
Tropical Guayaquil’s extreme heat and humidity – the city sits at sea level about 245km south of the equator – clearly did not foil the contagion. That would seem to undermine assertions by US President Donald Trump and others that the onset of warmer weather in the Northern Hemisphere may slow the rate of infections.
A combination of factors likely contributed to the immense toll in Guayaquil, a bustling port city filled with open markets and an animated street life. — NNN-AGENCIES