Heavily stricken by COVID-19, Ecuador’s densely populated city, Guayaquil, remains overwhelmed. 1,900 bodies have been retrieved from hospitals and funeral homes; an estimated fivefold increase from the expected mortality rate within the city. Families of the deceased have been forced to abandon their loved ones on the streets in view of Guayaquil’s collapsing medical and mortuary services. The city’s two cemeteries have been forced to accommodate an unexpected death toll. Individuals like Hector Vanegas and Moises Valle have voiced their concerns during this tumultuous period. Concerns that entail misrecognition over the dead.

Lawyer Hector Vanegas informed the AFP: “families are saying that the dead arrive with changed identities or men arrive when they’re women.” Guayaquil residents, along with Vanegas have been preparing to file a lawsuit against the government given the mass confusion and displacement emerging.

Valle lost his father from a heart attack at the Maldonado Carbo hospital. He, like many other Ecuadorians, filled the required forms to claim his body. To his surprise, the forms “had been sent to another healthcare facility without his consent,” as Al Jazeera provides. ‘‘This day an ordeal began because I couldn’t claim the body. Until yesterday my father’s name hadn’t appeared on the website,’’ he articulated to the AFP. Foreseeably, with hospitals beds flooded by the hundreds, sick patients have been forced to stay home. The exception? Critical cases. “You can’t get into a hospital unless you are critically ill,” stresses Michael Anderson, a New Zealander currently stuck in Ecuador.

Not only is Guayaquil home to 8,200 cases, from the 8,450 cases reported at a state level, but it is identified as Ecuador’s business capital. It accounts for the state’s international imports along with its export merchandise. This inevitably continues to strain the Ecuadorian economy. As the New York Times reports “[the] International Monetary Fund forecasts the country will see the deepest recession in the continent this year, after Venezuela.”

The most difficult part to grasp? Authorities have a reason to think that the infected toll is significantly higher than anticipated. And without members of a society to employ its labor and private sector industries post-recession, its chances of stabilization are zero to none. For this reason, the way the Ecuadorian government deals with this crisis shall determine the fate of the country at a long-term cost.

At a state level, 421 deaths and 8,450 cases have been reported. As Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo has disclosed, Ecuador ought to “be open about the statistics for deaths to show a more complete panorama,” which would reveal “why the funeral services and cemeteries simply could not cope in recent days in Guayaquil and Guayas.” A council member from Guayaquil, Andres Guschmer, has fervently warned that the city’s infected people count will exceed 35,000. But, is anyone in a position of power truly listening?

Ecuador’s inadequacy to contain the virus arises from its absence of appropriate measures. For one, Ecuador’s lack of testing has exacerbated the crisis domestically. Undoubtedly, the distribution of 30,000 coronavirus tests throughout the state covers a mere 17% of its people. Despite plans to heighten 1400 tests daily, Ecuador needs to allocate more tests quickly. Even with the World Health Organization’s plan to distribute more, the state needs to take agency for itself. For this reason, Ecuador needs to enforce the production of greater testing kits irrespective of the W.H.O.’s contributions and begin to assess cases that extend outside of close contacts and symptomatic features. These tests need to be made widely available to Ecuador’s most disadvantaged people including its Venezuelan refugees and Indigenous populations. Despite the expenditures, the recovery of the infected will ensure that a larger population will be prepared to work and regain control of the economy when the crisis ends.

Second, Ecuador needs to orients itself towards universal health care and easy to retrieve medical records across private and public providers. It can begin by exercising its capacity within local police offices, civil society organizations and public institutions to turn to mitigation efforts. Localized multisector structures can inherently serve to promote informational strategies and modular testing that would normally strain health care facilities.

These structures can operate as surveillance and health groups to store contact information, epidemiological data, and to ensure the selective monitoring of minimal to asymptomatic symptoms in those believed to be infected. The control of the virus at smaller clusters will, as The Lancet has stated, “allow verified recommendations that promote uptake of personal measures to be disseminated effectively (and in native languages) and would help channel complementary resources, such as food, to ensure proper isolation of cases.” By strategizing effectively, Ecuador can restore what it has lost and venture into 2021, one foot ahead, bracing boldly for healing.