Daily US Times: Dead bodies are being left in the streets of Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil. The western Ecuadorian city is deserted now. Only a few people and few dead bodies will be found in the streets.
The coronavirus pandemic is overloading the public services of the most populous city of the country. Hospitals have no beds left to accept sick patients, and morgues, cemeteries, and funeral homes are straining. There are no places left to keep the dead bodies, some residents say they have no choice but to place them outside.
It is unclear how many people have died from Covid-19 in the city. Many families say their relatives had coronavirus symptoms and others only know the ill were unable to be treated at Guayaquil’s overwhelmed hospitals.
Reuters news agency obtained a video message of Fernando Espana, a resident of the city, saying they have been trying to communicate with the authorities for five days to get them to know one of his family members had coronavirus symptoms.
“We are tired of calling 911 and the only thing they tell us is to wait, they are working to solve this,” he continues as he moves the camera through a window to show a black plastic-wrapped shape inside the home, with two fans blowing on it. Reuters obtained that video on March 30.
A coffin containing the body of a person who is supposed to have died from Covid-19 lays wrapped in plastic and covered with cardboard, outside a block of family apartments in Guayaquil on April 2. The highly unusual scene became the new normal in the city streets.
The smell from the body is too much to handle, Espana’s neighbor, Glenda Larrea Vera says in the same video.
He was describing that he has elderly neighbors and his mother, who is also 80-years old and has respiratory problems.
CNN obtained a surveillance video from last week, which shows a motorcyclist abandon a body in the street and few hours later, a group of people, dressed in special hazmat suits are seen picking up the deceased, then driving off in a vehicle.
In another video obtained by the same network shows, some people remove a body from a car. They were all face masked and wrap the body in what appears to be a black trap. A few minutes later a police van comes in the spot and conversation takes place between the group and police. But police later denied to explain about the conversation.
Ecuadorian authorities have collected more than 300 bodies from private homes in the city between March 23-30. The city has 2.99 million residents.
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