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How Coronavirus Ravaged Ecuador: From First Confirmed Case to Thousands Dead | NYT News

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Outside a hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador,

a family seals the coffin of their father

with plastic wrap.

Many people in Guayaquil blame the government

for failing to slow the spread of coronavirus,

and to deal with the thousands of bodies that have piled up

in the aftermath.

Guayaquil has suffered arguably the worst

Covid death toll in Latin America.

The thing is, Ecuador had acted earlier

than its neighbors to close borders and order

strict quarantine.

So what went wrong?

From the start, the one-two punch

of rapid contagion and the ensuing death toll

caught local and national officials off guard.

On Feb. 27, doctors in Guayaquil

diagnosed the country’s first Covid-19 patient,

Bella Lamilla, a 71-year-old retired teacher, otherwise

known as “Patient Zero.”

Dr. Esteban Ortiz-Prado is a medical investigator