Deaths have tripled in the last 15 days in the Ecuadorian province of Guayas and its capital, Guayaquil, with more than 6,700 dead, due to the health crisis caused by the coronavirus disease Covid-19.
Before the pandemic, the first case of which was detected on February 29 in the country, the Guayas, located on the Pacific coast, had 2,000 deaths per month on average. But "during those 15 days in April, there were 6,703 deaths," said Jorge Wated, a government official charged with handling the crisis in the province, on Thursday.
During a video conference, he stressed that among these deaths, there were victims of the new coronavirus, suspected cases and deaths from other diseases, but he did not specify the percentages.
15-day national mourning
Guayas accounts for around 70% of the more than 8,200 confirmed cases of Covid-19, including 403 dead, listed until Thursday in Ecuador. Of this total, 4,353 cases were detected in Guayaquil, the epicenter of the pandemic in the country and one of the most affected cities in Latin America. In the absence of medical attention in overcrowded hospitals, many people have died from other ailments in this port of 2.7 million inhabitants.
The curfew imposed 15 hours a day to stop the spread of the virus has also slowed down the work of funeral companies which are also outdated and whose employees have sometimes refused to go to the homes of deceased people, for fear of being contaminated.
VIDEO. Ecuador no longer manages to bury its dead from the Covid-19
In the past three weeks, approximately 1,400 corpses have been removed by a special military-police force deployed by the government, including 800 from housing and the rest from hospitals, for burial. "There are almost 700 people we hope to bury between this week and the next," added Jorge Wated.
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Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno on Thursday declared a 15-day national mourning for the deaths of Ecuadorians victims of the coronavirus. This decision was taken "because of the regrettable death and the irreparable loss of all compatriots infected with Covid-19, both at home and abroad," he said on his Twitter account.