Iran Press/America: In Guayaquil, a port city in Ecuador, the sudden spike in fatalities in April was comparable to what New York City experienced during its worst month: more than five times the number of people died than in previous years.
As the coronavirus’s toll eased in New York and in European capitals, a devastating wave has struck cities in Latin America, one that rivals the worst outbreaks in the world, an analysis of mortality data by The New York Times has found.
Brazilian cities are resorting to mass graves to bury rows of stacked coffins. Hundreds of Ecuadoreans are still searching for the bodies of family members who went to hospitals and never returned.
And while the catastrophes in Europe and the United States were closely monitored, playing out under intense international media scrutiny, much of Latin America’s pain is unfolding far from a global view, under governments that can’t — or won’t — offer a full tally of the dead.
“We weren’t prepared for this virus,” said Aguinilson Tikuna, an Indigenous leader in Manaus who has lost friends in the pandemic. “When this disease hit us, we locked ourselves in, locked our homes, isolated ourselves, but no one had the resources to buy masks, medicine. We lacked food.”
The Times measured the impact of the pandemic in major cities around the world by comparing the total number of people who have died in recent months against the average in each place over the past several years.
The totals include deaths from Covid-19, as well as those from other causes, including people who could not be treated as hospitals became overwhelmed with patients. And while no measure is perfect, the increase in deaths offers the most complete picture of the pandemic’s toll, demographers say.
205/201
Read more:
Latin American Leaders gather In Venezuelan to support Caracas
