Bodies Rotting in the Street: COVID-19 Chaos Grips Ecuador

[Judi Lynn]

Latin America’s worst outbreak is a gruesome harbinger of what’s to come when poverty meets pandemic.

Jeremy Kryt
Published Apr. 11, 2020 4:43AM ET

CALI, Colombia—Images coming out of Guayaquil, a port city on Ecuador’s Pacific coast, are as grim as anything the world has seen since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

As the death toll has overwhelmed hospitals and morgues, bodies have been abandoned in the streets or left to decay in houses, cargo trailers, and parking lots. The 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.

More:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-chaos-grips-ecuador-as-bodies-rot-in-the-street

They have a powerful right-wing presence in Guayaquill, maybe they can fix things by creating more tax breaks for the 1/2%.

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Sadly you're right. South America was (and may still be) riddled w/ massive discrepancies of ...

those very few that have wealth and those that don't, e.g., the .5% of 1% (so 99.5% live in abject conditions). It was amazing at this discrepancy when I traveled to Peru and saw the differences...like night and day.

Maybe this will wake up those that have the wealth, who'll realize that everything around them is dying and that their standard of living is going to disappear, when their cooks, gardeners, drivers, etc. whom they paid only a couple of hundred dollars a month at the most, die or get sick.

Somehow I doubt it, but their avenues of escape to the US is pretty well closed off now (and other places across the globe are closed too). I suspect that there will be a reckoning coming soon.

[jimfields33]

2. Their official number is 315.

I wonder if they have more and not able to provide adequate numbers or that is a lot for the country.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Many more numbers, but the families and friends of deceased people are busy

trying to find ways to bury the bodies, some have sneaked the bodies past military guards out into the countryside where they can bury them in peace. There are others simply lying on the streets, etc. and haven't been officially counted by anyone.

The system passed "crisis" a long time ago.

[Judi Lynn]

3. One has to wonder who in the chain has blocked US readers' access to this article:

Lack of coronavirus transparency undermining press freedom in Ecuador Reporters Without Borders

If you go there, you get this:
403
Access to his [sic] page is denied

https://rsf.org/en/news/lack-coronavirus-transparency-undermining-press-freedom-ecuador

Have been able to read RSF (Reporters without borders) articles always. This is the first time I've seen it, however, there are right-wing extremist governments in control here and in Ecuador.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Intense video - WATCH: Coronavirus Cause Chaos In Ecuador

APRIL 12, 2020
WATCH: Coronavirus Cause Chaos In Ecuador

The coronavirus pandemic has left mortuaries overflowing in Ecuador causing public frustration. Despite implementing a national lockdown as early as February, the virus has rapidly spread in that country and authorities seem overwhelmed.

Ecuador, a country straddling the equator on South America’s west coast, has so far recorded about 7 257 coronavirus cases and 315 deaths.

Although the number of deaths and cases recorded in that country are way smaller than those recorded in other countries around the world the video below suggests that authorities have either neglected the situation or are overwhelmed.

Morgues overflowing with dead bodies and some families keep their deceased relatives at home as they are not getting assistance from the government.

- video at link -

https://news.pindula.co.zw/2020/04/12/watch-coronavirus-cause-chaos-in-ecuador/

This article also posted in Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016252175