“They’re leaving them in the villages, they fall in front of hospitals,” Mayor Cynthia Viteri said in a video message last week. “No one wants to recover them.”

Viteri, herself, is in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19.

Pedro Zavala, a paramedic from Machala, told the Miami Herald that he’s twice had to transport ventilators to Guayaquil.

“Hospitals are running out of everything,” he said. “People are looking for oxygen tanks, respirators, ventilators, masks, anything.”