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- Ecuador.Guayaquil airport workers prevent the landing of two European planes for fear of the coronavirus
The pandemic has transformed Guayaquil into a great outdoor morgue, besieged by panic at the spread of the coronavirus. Hundreds of corpses accumulate in the streets of the economic capital of Ecuador waiting to be transferred to the provisional containers promised by the municipal government, whose mayor, Cinthya Viteri, is infected. The same occurs with 11 mayors of 22 in the coastal region of Guayas, whose capital is Guayaquil, the place where Covid-19 arrived from Torrejón de Ardoz to the South American country.
The images are bleak: corpses wrapped in plastic thrown onto the streets or accumulated in hospitals to confirm that the pandemic in Ecuador has also exceeded the state's response capacity. Videos made by citizens show how relatives take their deceased loved ones to the street and deposit them on the asphalt due to their fear of being infected. The same fear that the neighbors shout when they see similar scenes, even starring police officers or when the bodies are burned outdoors .
Alvarado López is one of the deceased, whose body packed with black plastic waits to be picked up in the car disinfection and cleaning area in a Guayaquil local. Next to him, seven other corpses deposited on the ground. "The morgue is already collapsed, it is full, there is nowhere to put the bodies. We are full of deaths from coronaviruses," the health worker Ángel Villena describes with resignation.
Images and testimonies that contrast with the official data of the government, which in the morning of today anticipate 2,748 positive cases and 93 deaths. More than half of both categories are from Guayaquil. "Everything is collapsed: zero hospitals, zero ambulances, zero morgues. The overflow is total, absolute and continuous ," a political source from the Guayaquil government, who calculates the number of corpses without collecting at 400, told EL MUNDO.
The first of the four refrigerated containers have been installed in the Monte Sinaí Hospital and the rest will be located near the hospitals that the government decrees, both for those who died in medical centers and for those who are collected from the streets and from homes. .
At the moment the Government refuses to install mass graves, but its capacity to bury the bodies is very limited . "We will ensure a dignified burial to those who died in the health emergency and guarantee the biosecurity of health workers by providing them with the necessary supplies," said President Lenín Moreno.
The pandemic and the resulting lack of control have unleashed a political storm that grows with the passing of the hours. Mayor Viteri, who prevented the landing of an Iberia plane at her city's airport for fear of contagions, has directly charged the central government: "They do not remove the dead from their homes, they leave them directly on the sidewalks, they fall in front to hospitals. No one wants to go pick them up. What about our patients? Families roam all over the city knocking on doors to be received by a hospital where there are no more beds, "protested the first mayor.
The citizen revolution led by Rafael Correa has launched directly against the jugular of President Lenín Moreno with a parallel campaign of criticism of his actions. Already last year, Correísmo, supported by its international allies, tried to overthrow the president during social protests led by indigenous people.
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Know more- Ecuador
- Rafael Correa
- Infectious diseases
- Coronavirus
- Covid 19
- Lenin Moreno
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