The body was wrapped in a plastic tarp, swollen, already attracting flies. He had been a neighbor, a man Rosangelys Valdiviezo passed while walking home from work, though they’d never exchanged words.
Now he lay in front of his home, one of an untold number of bodies cast out in the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador, a sweltering South American city being ravaged by the novel coronavirus. Valdiviezo, a 30-year-old seafood worker, said the body had been out in the tropical heat for six days.