At least 19 people die in houses and streets of Quito amid the pandemic

The city of Quito registered in two weeks the death of at least 19 people in houses and streets due to various causes, the mayor of the capital, Jorge Yunda, reported on Thursday, saying that several of these deaths were due to coronaviruses.

“There are six deaths that were registered on public roads,” the official said by telephone to AFP, adding that several of these 19 deaths were due to the new coronavirus and respiratory problems.

These deaths registered for 15 days in the capital of Ecuador worry the population after the crisis unleashed in Guayaquil (southwest), the focus of the pandemic in the country and which suffered the collapse of the hospital and funeral systems.

The situation in that port, where images of bodies abandoned in the streets for fear of the virus that circulated through the networks, led the government to temporarily create a team of police and military personnel that in April collected at least 1,600 deaths from homes and the public highway in Guayaquil.

Ecuador is one of the Latin American nations hardest hit by the pandemic, with 30,500 cases – including 2,338 deaths. Authorities also report 1,561 deaths likely from the virus.

Yunda indicated that in Quito, with almost 2,200 infections according to the national government, the hospitals have not yet overflowed as they did in Guayaquil, the country’s commercial center, and that the total number of deaths in her city remains at the usual average.

He added that the capital, where a 63-year-old woman died dead in the south of the city on Thursday, has registered 114 deaths from the coronavirus since the presence of the disease in the nation was declared on February 29.

Quito is the second Ecuadorian city with the most cases of covid-19, behind Guayaquil, with 8,273 infected.

The crisis in the midst of the pandemic in the province of Guayas and its capital Guayaquil is reflected in the number of deaths from various causes registered in April, which quintupled compared to the same month of 2019 (from 1,355 to 8,685 deaths), according to the Civil Registry in charge of the Executive.

Ecuador declared a state of emergency on March 16, which will last until mid-June. It also suspended face-to-face work and classes, and implemented the 15-hour curfew a day to promote the confinement of the population.

SP / lp