MEXICO CITY (AP) – Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil, a pandemic hell of makeshift morgues, piles of dead in their homes, dead bodies abandoned in the street.
It was in March and April, when the country’s economic center on the Pacific coast suffered as much as anywhere in the world because of the new coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. Guayaquil then stabilized, sending medical groups and devices to other parts of Ecuador to receive patients inflamed with the virus from outside the city.
Officials in Guayaquil characterize the change in component to a strict blockade and adaptability of a population that has endured epidemics of malaria, yellow fever, dengue and bubonic plague in a situation whose tropical climate, overcrowded neighborhoods and exposure to foreign travelers seemed to be oriented. towards infection.
Some medical experts warn against Guayaquil as a style for others, even if the government has adapted well after being hit in the first place.
“The contagion has been so massive, so fast” and so many other people have died that the number of other people vulnerable to coronavirus in Guayaquil has declined a lot today, said Dr. Esteban Ortiz, director of studies of a fitness program at the University of the Americas in Quito, capital of Ecuador.
In addition, Ortiz said, the rigorous use and implementation of “respiratory masks, masks, face protectors, social remoteness and handwashing” slowed the contagion.
To date, Ecuador’s Ministry of Health has documented more than 1,600 deaths from COVID-19 in Guayas province, which is Guayaquil. This represents almost a third of the official death toll from the disease across the country, a figure widely identified as underestimation.
Another knowledge of Guayaquil implies that the number of daily deaths recorded in parts of March and April was much higher than in the same days in previous years, suggesting that many were similar to coronavirus. In fact, thousands of others have died from COVID-19 in the city of 2.7 million more people, and some relatives still do not know precisely where their dead were buried during this chaotic period.
Guayaquil promises to punish anyone who violates fitness guidelines. The city warns of $60 fines for others who don’t wear a mask on public transport, and bus drivers who allow passengers to go unmasked can get $200 fines and issues tied up in their licenses.
Please note that hotels and restaurants can hold parties. Meetings for baptisms and weddings are over. The city’s Veradero beach remains closed while the beaches open in other parts of Ecuador.
The city is helping citizens with the distribution of food and cell clinics. The personal sector has been concerned about aid efforts. The military and national fitness government has provided assistance, city officials say the Quito government has been slow in providing resources and percentage information.
“Given the enormous burden Guayaquil felt in March and April, I think they learned a lot, both from their successes and from their shortcomings,” said Bernardo Gutiérrez, a researcher at the San Francisco University in Quito. He wrote in an email to The Associated Press that “Guayaquil’s merits lie in particular in its efforts to organize and coordinate efforts between local government and civilian actors” to put in place adequacy measures.
But Gutierrez said there is no guarantee that Guayaquil’s specific protocols will work because of the unpredictability of any epidemic and the fact that “one people’s express scenario will be very different from the others.”
As the crisis subsided, Guayaquil sent doctors to several regions, adding Quito, who is experiencing his own increase in COVID-19. Guayaquil has accepted patients inflamed by the virus from other regions, to the point that Mayor Cynthia Viteri, herself cured of a mild case of COVID-19, warned that beds in the ICU were scarce.
On July 25, Viteri marked the foundation of Guayaquil through the Spanish colonizers in the century with an emotional speech on the hill of Carmen, which dominates the city.
“They just left us to our destiny” at the height of the pandemic, he said. But, the mayor said, the other people in Guayaquil have got their feet back.
The small organization of visitors, masked, their chairs well spaced, applauds.