As the coronavirus outbreak in Ecuador’s largest city of Guayaquil begins to stabilize, the government is bracing for worsening spread in the highland capital Quito, where at least six people have died in the streets in the past month.
Guayaquil was at the center of one of Latin America’s worst outbreaks of the novel coronavirus in March and April. Cemeteries ran out of space and families stored relatives’ dead bodies in their homes or on the streets as the virus strained the health system’s capacity to collect them.
But authorities’ attention is now turning to Quito, whose 2.8 million residents are under a strict lockdown to contain the virus’ spread. The local government said in a statement on Friday that between April 4 and May 13 it had picked up the bodies of six people who had died in the streets, in addition to seven bodies from homes and two from nursing homes.
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